


99th Percentile

by m_class



Category: Star Trek: Discovery
Genre: & when I run out I can‚ will‚ & must make Star Trek characters do so, Angst, Anxiety Attacks, Banter, Cooking, Cuddling & Snuggling, Domestic Fluff, Exes who are friends, Flashbacks, Food, Forehead Kisses, Gen, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, I yearn 24/7 to read middle-aged characters discuss, Implied/Referenced Minor Character Death, Injury Recovery, Language, Medical Device, Music, Nonbinary Character, Nonbinary Nikos Georgiou, Philippa Georgiou Lives, Post-Season/Series 01 AU, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychological Trauma, aftermath of war, conversations about Starfleet, detailed cw's in notes, how their communities shape them & how they shape their communities, liminal spaces, m_class’s 2018-2019 completed-WIP collection, math jokes, mentioned Nikos Georgiou/Philippa Georgiou, mentions of Lorca creeping on Burnham
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-14
Updated: 2020-10-14
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:08:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27002515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/m_class/pseuds/m_class
Summary: A month after the end of the war, Philippa Georgiou is leaving a meeting with Starfleet brass—including her friend and ex-wife Nikos, who is currently contracting with Starfleet despite their anger with it—when a poorly-timed anxiety attack leads to conversations about Starfleet, trauma, and history as Nikos offers Philippa their help during her period of recovery.
Relationships: Nikos Georgiou & Philippa Georgiou
Comments: 6
Kudos: 4





	99th Percentile

**Author's Note:**

> **Author’s Notes and Credits/Acknowledgements -**
> 
> I started this fic almost exactly two years ago, thinking it was going to be a 3k-5k oneshot (LOL). Two years and god knows how many hours later, I am very excited to finally press publish. ;) If it looks vaguely familiar to anyone who read my Tumblr two years ago, I chattered about it shortly after I began it for the WIP folder ask meme that was going around!
> 
> As I mentioned at the time, my nonbinary headcanon for Nikos Georgiou—who is the ex-husband gratuitously given to Philippa in a DSC novel—was inspired by the brilliant georgiov ([andunetir](https://archiveofourown.org/users/andunetir))’s creation of a nonbinary headcanon for him, which then made headcanon fireworks start going off in my head. 
> 
> My fic-verse’s version of Nikos ended up being the first nonbinary character I wrote a significant chunk of words for, and writing them was in some ways one of my steps toward writing many more nonbinary DSC OCs and original fiction characters, so, long story short I am very excited to _finally_ post the Nikos fic :) (November 2018 me: “I’m hoping to post some time in the next month or so!” LOL.) Huge shoutout to georgiov for coming up with the Nikos without whom my version of Nikos wouldn’t have existed, and for their moral support and enthusiasm when I first chattered about my headcanons. <3
> 
> Speaking of background characters who deserve the universe… Commodore Paris is a character in the Star Trek: Beyond movie who [cosmic_llin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cosmic_llin) had the idea of shipping with Georgiou a few years ago, and wrote a [gorgeous story about the two of them](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12228339). \o/ I love this ship and the idea of those two together either romantically or platonically (I kinda skirt the edges since there’s been some fetishizing stuff in their tag since, but as I was writing this story about Philippa in San Francisco, I knew how much I wanted to come back to Commodore Paris!) So, shoutout also to cosmic-llin for so brilliantly colliding these two universes.
> 
> And, many thanks to [elissastillstands](https://archiveofourown.org/users/elissastillstands/) for all her listening to me ramble excitedly about this fic as it made its way to completion!
> 
> Philippa being a former field medic, plus a vague reference to her having had a “more martial” career before she was in Starfleet, both come from the tie-in novel Desperate Measures.
> 
> Philippa and Nikos’s laksa lemak (Malaysian curry noodle soup dish) recipe comes mostly from [ this recipe](https://hot-thai-kitchen.com/singaporean-laksa/).
> 
> **AU & Background Notes -**
> 
> This fic takes place in the same AU as [ Rainstorm](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16194077), though you don’t need to have read it before reading this one (and this fic in fact is chronologically first). Ripper, returning at the end of Season 1 and wanting to do something nice for Michael, causes shenanigans that lead to an armistice, and also brings Philippa forward in time from the moment of her death. 
> 
> The canonical medal ceremony happens a week or two after the armistice/Philippa’s return, right around the time Philippa is getting out of the hospital in San Francisco. This fic takes place a few weeks after the ceremony, and about a week before Rainstorm; Philippa is living and working in San Francisco, while transporting over to France frequently to attend meetings with the Discovery crew and spend time with Michael.
> 
> A crash course on percentiles for the interested: If you’re in the, for example, 47th percentile for X thing, then you’re more X than 47% of people and less X than the upper 53% of people; there’s no such thing as a 100th percentile since to be in it you would need to paradoxically be more X than yourself.
> 
> Since most of the fic ostensibly takes place in Greek, please assume Nikos’s puns are translated equivalents. ;)
> 
> Background info on language and gender in regards to the nicknames in play here is in the endnotes, and can be read before, after, or never, depending on your preference!
> 
> **Additional content warnings -**
> 
> \- see the beginning of the fic because I, um, ran out of character allowance in this field.

**Overflow (ahaha) from the Author's Notes box:  
Additional content warnings - **

In addition to the tags, there are drowning metaphors and references to vomiting, and the referenced minor character deaths are by hull breach (Connor) and radiation poisoning.

One other content warning of sorts - since this fic was started two years ago, it of course wasn’t written to address this year, but since it's a story about the aftermath of disaster, some of its previously-written setting/problems/questions are inadvertently relevant, and some of the bits of writing (I write prose very out-of-order) and all of the editing I did this year have some small degree of bleedthrough by virtue of being worked on this year, even though that wasn’t the original intention for this piece. So I wanted to flag that as a CW before the beginning of the fic. <3

On a lighter note, there is (in addition to the :( NSFW-ish mentions of Lorca creeping on Burnham) one NSFW joke in this story, and it happens in the paragraph that begins _Agnes will be proud._

* * *

Philippa Georgiou hurries down the concrete stairwell of the parking garage. This is the first time she has been alone since the beginning of today’s lunch meeting several hours previously, and now that she is alone, the breathlessness and nausea that she began to be aware of as the group stood in a semi-circle by the Admiral Wallis’s hovercar, having a protracted round of goodbyes and one-last-things, is beginning to hit her in full force.

 _Just get to the transporter station,_ she mouths to her unruly brain. _Just walk down the stairs, walk down the block, walk into the transporter station, and then you’re back at the apartment._ _You can do it. You can, you can, you can._

Her circulatory system, however, seems disinclined to believe this assurance, her breaths coming fast and choppy and her stomach clenching. _One foot in front of the other,_ she thinks, _one foot in front of the other,_ but the buzzing overwhelm is rising over her like a drowning tide.

“Fuck—”

Gripping the grimy handrail, Philippa lowers herself onto the concrete stairs, wrapping her arms around her knees.

 _Fuck, fuck, fuck._ Her heart is pounding and it feels impossible to catch her breath, and memories are swimming around her, subsuming her and the stairwell around her with the force of floodwater. _Bracelet,_ she thinks, then, _Do I_ really _have to—_

She cuts off the shame-laden rebuttal, snapping back at herself in the tone that she would use to give her crew an order on the bridge of her starship, _Be a good role model, Georgiou. You can’t breathe, so: bracelet._

Uncurling enough to look down at her hands, she jams her right index finger against the button in the thin duranium bracelet around her left wrist.

The bracelet _dings_ a quiet confirmation, and a few seconds later its communicator emits a mutter of interference, and then a person’s voice comes over the line in Federation Standard. “You’ve reached the medical bracelet line. What is your current concern?”

Philippa clears her throat, sitting up straight on the stair. “I can’t catch my breath, and there’s some slight nausea as well. I think it’s quite likely that I’m just having an anxiety attack, but I knew that I should probably press the button and make sure.”

“I understand,” returns the voice, their tone warm, “and I’m glad you called. Can I ask you to confirm your name?”

“Captain Philippa Georgiou.”

A brief pause before the voice continues, stretching the first word in that upbeat stall-tone way that people use to signal that they are accomplishing some quick task, “Aaaall right, Captain Georgiou. I have your medical records pulled up in the system here, and I’m looking at the current readings from your bracelet now. I can see the elevated heartrate and respiration you’re referring to.” Another short pause, and the person continues, “Before we do a scan, I’m going to ask you whether you’re in a safe place right now?”

“Yes, I am,” Philippa replies. “Well, sort of. I’m sitting in the middle of a flight of stairs, which wouldn’t be a great idea if I were in danger of passing out, but standing up doesn’t—feel like it would be too hot of an idea right now either.” She closes her eyes as another wave of nausea surges through her.

“All right, that makes sense, Captain.” Philippa notes with both professional approval and personal appreciation that the person on the other end of the line is striking a skillful balance of warmth without condescension. “I’m going to have the bracelet scan you now. If you’re able to sit or stand upright—or I guess it’d be ‘sit,’ for you, right now,” they amend, “—without discomfort, and hold your wrist one handspan in front of your collarbone, I’m going to ask you to do that for me for optimal readings.”

Philippa, already sitting up straight, adjusts her posture straighter, lifting her arm. “I can do that.”

“Perfect!” says the voice. “Now, it’s going to scan you in three, two, one…”

The bracelet beeps like a medical tricorder, which it, in effect, is, as it scans Philippa. Philippa remains still, and a few seconds later, the voice says, “All right, the scan is all done, aaand—” The voice draws the word out again, in the way that Philippa has heard so many colleagues do over the years as a verbal ‘viewing information, and about to pass it along to you as soon as I’ve read it’ indicator. “The system is reporting no immediate physical health emergency,” they report, sounding happy for Philippa. “I’m just going to go over the rest of your readings now—”

Philippa smiles, relaxing slightly. The bracelet, like any other medical tricorder, would have instantly caught an acute emergency, with negligible chance of error; at least she isn’t about to die in this grubby stairwell.

The person on the other end of the line makes cheerful _hum-hum-hum_ noises as they presumably continue to examine Philippa’s readings and medical history. “All right, Captain,” they continue after a minute or two has passed. “Based on these readings, we can confirm that you’re not experiencing any kind of acute physical health crisis. Your readings are generally consistent with an anxiety attack, as you described.”

Unseen by them, Philippa grimaces, staring fixedly down at her knees. In Federation Standard, as in several Earth languages, the word _anxiety_ has two definitions: in day-to-day usage, it can refer to fear that is mild, while in day-to-day or clinical usage, it can also refer to the psychological and physical condition that is not necessarily mild at all. Which makes it feel all the more galling, to some small lingeringly-ashamed part of herself, to admit that it’s an _anxiety attack,_ rather than the more respectable-sounding but symptomatically distinct _panic attack,_ that has her crumpled up in a parking garage stairwell.

“Looking at your current inflammation markers in the context of your scans since your injury,” the person continues, “it looks like your body is also a bit physically overtaxed right now. While it isn’t an emergency, I _would_ recommend that you avoid strenuous activity for the rest of the day, and see a healthcare provider in-person some time within the next few days to check in about safe activity levels.”

Philippa nods, still invisible to them. “I understand.” Thinking through her schedule for the week, she adds, “I have a weekly appointment the day after tomorrow.”

“Sounds great,” says the person, sounding pleased to hear it. “Now, back to my location question; I know you’d mentioned that you’re sitting in the middle of a flight of stairs? Do you have any history of unexpected loss of consciousness, for example, when standing up suddenly, or when your blood sugar is low?”

“No, I don’t.”

“All right, if you don’t have anything like that in your history, then based on your current readings you shouldn’t be at a heightened risk for loss of consciousness.” There is a cheerful grin in the person’s voice as they add, “For the moment, I can _officially_ clear you for sitting on stairs, Captain.”

Philippa laughs. “Thank you,” she replies, in a tone of jokey formality. “The official stamp of approval is received and appreciated.”

The person on the other end of the line laughs as well, and Philippa smiles.

“Now, for my final diagnostic question, I’m going to ask what you did today,” they continue. “No need for too much detail; we just want to make sure we catch any situational flags for ongoing harm that the bracelet’s snapshot might have missed.”

“I see,” Philippa agrees, closing her eyes and thinking back. “Well, I woke up at my normal time, had breakfast, did some reading in my apartment, and then took the transporter into the city. Up until about thirty minutes ago, I was at lunch with friends—well, a working lunch with colleagues, actually, so it wasn’t _completely_ free of stress,” she amends, with an expository chuckle, “but some of the attendees were friends.”

One of the perks of today’s lunch meeting was that it, in point of fact, included two of Philippa’s closest friends on Earth; as well as Commodore Paris, Philippa’s ex-wife Nikos Georgiou was in attendance. Nikos is not Starfleet’s biggest fan; however, the infosec firm that they’ve spent the last decade and a half lovingly building from the ground up is now regarded as one of the best on Earth at, among other things, securing the type of crisis IT project management that Starfleet currently badly needs, and, given Nikos’s decision that Starfleet is one of the better bets in the quadrant right now for competent search and rescue work, they agreed to contract with Starfleet after the war despite their reservations about the organization as a whole. Today’s ostensibly primarily-social lunch gathering between some of the biggest infosec and Security decisionmakers in Starfleet was a way for those present to get a feel for each other’s capabilities and interests going into the next phase of recovery around Starbase One.

“I walked some of my colleagues back to the parking garage after lunch, and—well. Then I ended up in this stairwell,” Philippa finishes, adding, “I could tell that I was starting to flag a bit at the end of lunch, but I thought that I would still easily be able to make it back to the transporter station without event. Evidently,” she adds drily, “I was incorrect.”

The person on the other end of the line chuckles at the wry addendum. “How are you feeling right now, Captain Georgiou?” they ask.

Philippa considers this for a moment, taking a deliberate breath. “Still—still a bit short of breath, I think,” she says. “And still nauseous. But it’s quite good to know that I’m not about to pass out in this stairwell, and I do think that talking helped a bit with the—with the anxiety attack, too.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” says the voice, sounding as though they mean it. “That should be all of my diagnostic questions wrapped up.” A beat; the person is, Philippa guesses, entering data into their system. “Would you like a counselor or a medical team to meet you at your location?”

“No, thank you. I’ll be all right.”

“Sounds good, Captain,” says the voice cheerfully. “I’m going to ask you if you have a plan for getting to a safe and comfortable place?”

Philippa thinks through her route: into the elevator on the nearest landing, which now seems like a better choice than the stairs; out of the parking garage door; walk down the block; walk into the transporter station; walk half a block back to the door of the apartment building that houses her San Francisco sublet. “Yes, I do,” she confirms. “I’m a block away from a transporter station, so I’m just going to take the elevator down out of the parking garage, walk to the transporter station, and then it’s half a block from the transporter to my apartment.”

“Wonderful,” says the voice on the line. “Would you like me to send someone to walk with you?”

Philippa considers this for a moment. Long years of intently rewiring herself to be a good role model when it comes to asking for help when reasonable prevents her from a kneejerk refusal; it isn’t as though she’ll help herself or anyone else by spending the next three hours trying to make her way up off this stair and home through an anxiety-attack-and-flashback haze. And whoever they send to walk with her will probably be a fascinating source of conversation—what is it like to live in and around Starfleet Headquarters at a moment in history like this, one month out from the end of the war?

She considers.

Does she _need_ the help, though? Everywhere is understaffed.

“No, thank you,” she says again.

“Are you certain? It’s no trouble on our end, and we want to make sure you get home safe.”

“I’m sure.” Philippa confirms, trying to inject appreciative warmth and confidence into her tone.

“All right,” says the cheerful voice, and for a moment Philippa is mildly surprised that they didn’t push or ask again. Human factor, she remembers: a contingent of the high-risk medical bracelet design team had insisted that if a push of the button meant automatically deploying medical personnel, even when it was clear from the bracelet’s readings and the ensuing conversation that this wasn’t needed, people would be less likely to actually push it.

“Are there any other questions I can answer for you, or any other resources I can connect you with while I’m on the line?”

“No, I’m all right. Thank you,” Philippa adds sincerely.

“You’re very welcome, Captain. Take care.” The line clicks off.

As she takes a deep breath in the sudden silence, Philippa feels a crushed kind of exhaustion settle over her at the same time as a brief spurt of pride. She used the bracelet, again. It feels miserable and fraught and humiliating to see herself as someone in need of this kind of help, but she used the bracelet once again, even so.

 _Agnes will be proud,_ she thinks. It was Agnes, one of Philippa’s oldest childhood friends, who hadn’t done more than throw a jacket over her nightgown before transporting from Kuala Lumpur to San Francisco when she got the next-of-kin notification of Philippa’s rescue, joining Nikos and the small handful of Philippa’s Starfleet friends who were on Earth at the end of the war to fuss over Philippa during those first fuzzy days in Starfleet Medical, walking her down the halls and helping Nikos make sure Michael slept and ate. It was Agnes who sat beside Philippa during discharge as Philippa slid the cool metal of the bracelet onto her wrist for the first time, and Agnes who whispered _I thought you were too vanilla for handcuffs, Phil_ once the doctor was out of earshot. It was Agnes who filled the sublet apartment that she and Charlotte had conjured up with Philippa’s belongings, given that she’d been the one who had had them in storage for nearly two years—since, unlike Philippa’s telescope, Starfleet Command hadn’t felt the need to delay Philippa’s bequest of personal effects to a non-mutineer friend by over six months as tacit punishment—and it was Agnes who, upon leaving Philippa in that apartment, had reached for her hand and brushed a finger across the bracelet, an unspoken plea in her eyes, before heading back to her hovercar.

The hard-won pride warms Philippa for a few more seconds, and then tears are prickling her eyes and her breaths are growing choppy again, and she buries her head once again in her knees. At least now she knows that this really is just exhaustion and trauma rather than her newly-repaired body falling entirely to pieces, but knowing that it’s mostly just her mind breaking down on her in this stairwell feels like cold comfort. Starfleet is broken and the Federation is broken and the Alpha Quadrant is broken and _she_ is broken and the memories are rising again, a floodtide, and who decreed it fair play for the universe to inflict flashbacks and exhaustion and an anxiety attack all at the same time—

The communicator in her pocket beeps. Gritting her teeth, Philippa pulls it out and flips it open, straightening her back again and exhaling to keep her voice correctly pitched before answering in Standard, “Georgiou here.”

“Hey, Phil,” Nikos’s voice comes through the slightly tinny speaker.

Philippa relaxes slightly at the sound of their voice, switching to Greek as she slumps back onto the step. “Hey, Kokos. What’s up?”

“It was good to see you today.” Nikos pauses for a moment, and she can practically see them tilting their head to the side, considering whether to proceed, as they lean against the side of their hovercar or maybe perch in the driver’s seat in preparation to head back to their own San Francisco sublet apartment. “I noticed you flagging a little bit as we were saying our goodbyes, and—don’t worry, it wasn’t _noticeable_ , just, you know, I know you enough that I thought I might’ve noticed something. Anyway, I just wanted to make sure you were good to get home.”

Philippa’s eyes widen and she stares at the communicator in her hand, simultaneously surprised, touched and, last but not least, irritated with herself for not being more effectively discreet with her escalating symptoms.

Then again, Nikos is almost certainly right that they’re the only one of the lunch group who noticed; they have years of marriage and years more of friendship with Philippa to go on on top of being unusually perceptive of Human body language in general.

“I’m okay, Kokos,” she tells them gently after a short pause. Fighting her kneejerk reaction to deny their observation, she continues, “I _am_ flagging a bit, and it probably wouldn’t be a good idea for me to drive, but I came here via the transporter station. At the push of a button, I’ll be a block from my sublet.”

“Okay, Phil.” They hesitate. “And you’re good to make it to the transporter station?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m almost there now,” she compulsively assures them, straightening her spine again. “I was just about to step into the station when you called.”

“The transporter station on the corner in front of the Phlox Science Building?”

“Yeah.”

“You’re walking up to it now?”

“Yeah.” Philippa sighs, running her nails along her pocket zipper. “You’re at the transporter station, aren’t you.”

“Yeah.”

Philippa scrubs her face with her hand. “Fuck, Kokos, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to lie to you, I just—” Lied to them. Fuck.

“Phil. Philippa. I’m not mad, but now I _am_ worried.” They are; she can hear it in their voice. She clenches a handful of pants fabric between her fingers, shame at having worried Nikos rising in her chest. _Fuck._

“You have your whole scout’s-honor, Starfleet-captains-tell-no-lies schtick,” they continue gently, a trace of their characteristic jocularity coming back into their voice. “I’ve gotta assume that Captain Philippa Georgiou fibbing about transporter stations comma distance walked to same is reason for her loyal friend slash favorite ex-wife to go at least to yellow alert.”

Philippa feels the tightness in her throat relaxing slightly as a lopsided smile breaks over her face. “You’re my only ex-wife, Kokos.”

“And your favorite.”

“And my favorite.” Philippa smiles, scrubbing her face with her hand. “Nikos, I am…so sorry I lied to you.” She swallows. “It was…impulsive and it was stupid. But I _am_ going to be all right. I’m in the stairwell of the parking garage, and I already used the medical bracelet line, so I know I’m not having a heart attack or anything. It’s just an anxiety attack, and I just need to walk it off.”

Nikos is silent for a minute. “Phil,” they say at last, “there’s a pretty big gulf between ‘actual medical emergency’ and ‘totally fine and in need of no help at all,’ and I am _so happy_ that you have the bracelet emergency system thingy to help stay safe, but my yellow alert of doom stands.” Their voice turns gentle, sheepish, on the last words. “I wanna make sure you’re okay.”

Philippa feels her heart constrict with emotion. Nikos is, at the end of the day, a fairly private person, and respects that Philippa is the same; she can hear what it’s costing them to continue pushing.

Injecting a note of jokey suspicion into her voice, she asks gently, “And why is it a yellow alert of doom?”

“Because if we stay on the line much longer, you’re doomed to hear one of my trademark, excellent, very well-crafted, extremely funny math jokes,” Nikos says cheerfully.

Philippa smiles in spite of herself, feeling her choppy breathing calming further. “Doom is right,” she says drily.

Nikos snorts. “Would you like me to come meet you?” they ask, voice gentle again. “Or, I could just hang out and stay on the line as you make your way to the station. Or, would you rather hang out where you are, and chat with me from there for a bit?”

Audible from the other side of the stairwell wall, a hovercar zooms by a bit over the speed limit, the hum of the engine loud in Philippa’s ears, and panic surges through her like a knife. What if the hovercar crashes, and Philippa can’t help them because she is helpless; because she useless; because there was a war and she spent it being dead and her crew was decimated and her first officer was scapegoated and preyed upon and what remains of her ship is out there, somewhere, floating shattered in frozen space—

“Phil?”

Philippa curls in on herself again, digging her fingers into the fabric of her uniform trousers as her breathing grows ragged and she listens for a crash, fingertips clinging to the fabric as though something as simple as synthesized uniform cloth will steady her when she is helpless and useless and the quadrant is broken and Starfleet as she knew it barely even exists anymore—

“Phil? Are you there?” Nikos. Worried.

“I’m here,” Philippa manages.

“I asked if you’d like me to come meet you? Or stay on the line for a bit?”

 _Asked, if, you’d, like, me, to, come, meet, you, or, stay, on, the, line, for, a, bit?_ The words float in front of Philippa, and she hates herself for not being able to parse them; hates herself for needing to make a decision and not being able to decide. Captains are supposed to be able to decide. Nikos, comm line, elevator, transport station, the Shenzhou floating broken in frozen space; a puzzle that she needs to solve, but the pieces are floating around, untouchable and unaligned.

The hovercar never did crash.

“I don’t know,” she whispers.

“I’ll walk back now.” Nikos’s voice is firm and worried and sure, and so familiar that it brings her more solidly back to herself. Herself, curled in a stairwell disrupting Nikos’s afternoon because she can’t peel herself off the damn stairs.

“Nikos, I can call the bracelet line back and find someone to walk with me. You don’t have to—”

“I’ll be there in about two minutes.” She can hear in their voice that they’ve begun to walk briskly, and she sighs, staring at the communicator.

“Hey, Phil,” they say, after a few moments have elapsed.

“What is it, Kokos?”

“What did the parabola say when it was used to design a Manatee-class shuttle?” Nikos’ voice, slightly breathless from walking, is touched with glee.

Philippa groans loudly. “I don’t know, Nikos,” she replies, in the most disinterested voice it is possible for her to affect. “What _did_ the parabola say when it was used to design a Manatee-class shuttle.”

“‘I guess we’re a- _boat_ to _seeeeeeaaa_ ,” Nikos replies, drawing out the _sea_ to leave no doubt as to its spelling, “whether my curves are asym- _float_ -ically parallel.”

Philippa groans loudly again, smiling as she feels her breathing steadying slightly. “You were right.”

“Yes, I’m always right.” Nikos waits a beat, a grin in their voice. “About what?”

“It _was_ a yellow alert of doom.”

She hears Nikos let out a breathy _ha;_ they must be really booking it towards her from the station.

“Which—I didn’t wonder til now, but why were you at the transporter station?” she asks, trying to pitch her voice, accurately, towards idle curiosity rather than interrogation. “I thought you’d driven here.” She waves a hand, invisible to them, as she adds, “Not that you don’t have a right to use the transporter system of the fine city of San Francisco. I’m just being nosy.”

“Oh, yeah, I do have my car in the garage,” Nikos’s breathless voice replies. “I thought I’d transport downtown to do some work in a café, then transport back here to drive home.”

“Oh, that sounds nice.” Guilt twists Philippa’s stomach again. “I—I’m sorry I put a hole through your afternoon plans, Kokos.” She closes her eyes, trying to inhale and exhale, inhale and exhale, as anxiety rises through her again, the return of the drowning tide. “I’m sorry—”

A sound like a whimper falls from her throat, and _great, wonderful, now you’ll worry Nikos more—_

“I’m sorry—” All these months being dead, being nothing, doing nothing to help anyone as war raged through the quadrant, and now she’s back and instead of helping all she can do is hurt people—

Somewhere, distantly, Nikos is saying, _You have nothing to apologize for, Phil, Lili, you have nothing to apologize for,_ their voice interspersed like bad radio static with the final hours of the Shenzhou as they play out in the stairwell around her. She’d known, before she died, that Danby Connor had been among the casualties of the battle, but she hadn’t known until after her return a month ago that it had been her own instructions to him to go to sickbay that had killed him, and now she sees it over and over again, half-memory and half-imagination: how she told him to go down to sickbay and he went, passing out of her field of view for the final time; how he would’ve taken the C turbolift down; would’ve stood with his arms folded the way he always did in the lift—or maybe he was too concussed for that; maybe he would have just stood there, arms limp at his sides, waiting for the lift doors to open. But instead of getting out at sickbay, he’d gotten out at the brig, and Philippa can see him; can see how his eyes must have looked to Michael the second before he was blown out into space—

She wraps her arms around her knees, squeezing her eyes shut as though that will block out the memories, but they play behind her eyelids, the tide of anxiety rising around her like water creeping up the stairwell centimeter by centimeter. Her breathing is loud against her ears, and she tries to breathe more deeply, but that only makes her feel more starved of air. In the darkness of memory and nausea and ragged breaths, she tries to drown it all out by thinking through the lyrics to a song, but she can’t remember the words after the first stanza.

The bang of the stairwell door opening below makes her jump, unwrapping her arms from her knees and straightening her spine in preparation to reassure a passerby that the Starfleet captain sitting in the parking garage stairwell is quite all right, no need to worry, should they end up walking up far enough to see her on the third floor. But it’s Nikos’s voice that calls up to her through the echoing stairwell.

“Philippa?”

“I’m—” Her voice sounds small and crushed. She pretends she’s on the bridge of the Shenzhou, projecting her voice in round captain’s tones to carry across the bridge. “I’m up here! Just above the third-floor landing.”

“On my way up,” Nikos calls back.

Reaching up for the grubby metal handrail, Philippa tries to stand to meet them, but anxious nausea surges within her again, and she releases the handrail, wrapping her arms around herself. Nikos’s footsteps echo against metal and stone as they make their way up to her, and all at once they’re rounding the corner and jogging across the third-floor landing, still in their business-lunch clothes but with their dark hair now gathered up in a messy knot, eyes going wide as they mount the remaining half-flight up steps up to her.

“Oh, Lili,” they murmur as they come to sit on the step beside her, and wordlessly, she leans against them, their strong arms wrapping gently around her to fold her into a warm embrace.

They sit like that for several minutes, Philippa’s cheek buried against Nikos’s chest.

“It’ll be okay,” Nikos murmurs softly, after a few minutes. “I’m right here with you. It’ll be okay.”

Philippa nods unspeakingly against the surprisingly silky softness of their formal magenta sweater, taking another few breaths before pulling herself far enough back to meet their gaze, knees touching theirs.

“How are you feeling?” they ask gently.

Philippa takes a long breath. “Better. Now that you’re here. Thank you for—thank you for coming, Kokos.” She swallows. “Still a little short of breath, and nauseous, and—I think it’s flashbacks and an anxiety attack at the same time.” If she thought that explaining her situation to the stranger on the bracelet line in Standard was bad, telling Nikos about it in Greek, a language that is among both of their first languages, feels even more horribly intimate.

And that, too, brings a flash of guilt, because sure, a first language can have its own kind of immediacy, but you shouldn’t be thinking of words like _horrible_ when you have the chance to speak Greek with your ex-wife or Malay with your lifelong friend or English with the woman you’ve worked with for twenty years or Cantonese with your half-brother, should you? The languages that Philippa has spoken since childhood and carried with her to the stars have always been their own source of love and hope, even entangled with the complications of memory and history, and it feels guilt-inducing that she hasn’t been able to keep the fears and traumas of the war from touching even her relationship with them.

Shaking her head slightly, she tries to focus on the rote need to communicate without thinking about the sounds of the words that she is using to do so.

“And then there was this hovercar…”

No sooner has she begun than she trails off again, trying to figure out how to explain the hovercar. She closes her eyes, blinking them open again at the sound of Nikos’s voice.

“Since you’re short of breath and nauseous,” Nikos is asking, their eyebrows drawn gently together in concern, “do you think it’s worth doing a medical check?”

“Way ahead of you.” Philippa smiles tiredly, tapping the bracelet.

Nikos relaxes slightly. “Oh, right,” they say, looking genuinely comforted, and Philippa feels a surge of pride, again, at having braved the bracelet to make sure she wasn’t about to pass out in this stairwell.

“Do you think you might throw up?” Nikos asks gently. “There’s a bathroom somewhere downstairs.”

“I don’t think so,” Philippa says. “I don’t throw up very often.”

Nikos raises an eyebrow at this assertion, but doesn’t comment on it, instead glancing back at the bracelet. “Does that thingy only send data, or did you talk to someone?”

“I talked to someone. They confirmed the data and checked to make sure I was safe and okay where I was, and that I had a plan to get home,” she tells Nikos, leaning back against their shoulder.

“And they didn’t send someone to walk you home?” Nikos asks, sounding disapproving.

Philippa gives them a brief rundown of the high-risk medical bracelet design process of June – December 2251.

“All right, I suppose that makes sense.” Nikos has their head tilted to the side; their assessing-a-system look. They sound genuinely mollified as they repeat, “That makes sense.”

“It’s not meant to be the San Francisco mental health line,” Philippa adds. “I could have called that if I’d needed a counselor or someone to walk with me. The bracelet system is just a way to determine whether someone is having a medical emergency so they—we—don’t assume it’s stress or whatever and then pass out without having called for help. One step down from actually having to wear a vital sign monitor like Charlotte.”

“You said that like it’s a fate worse than death.”

“She can’t swim!”

“Really? It’s not waterproof?”

“No, yes, I mean—she _can_ swim, but she has to put a little cover thing on it first. It takes like five minutes. She can’t go for an impromptu swim.”

Nikos snorts faintly, stroking Philippa’s hair. “You _really_ don’t like the idea of your medical needs getting between you and _any_ part of life, huh?”

The retort that _She can’t go for an impromptu swim_ sounds a little silly to Philippa’s ears as she replays it mentally and realizes that, given that she and Nikos both grew up near the sea, Nikos was probably picturing a scenario of a hypothetical Charlotte—or a more-hypothetical, vital-sign-monitor-wearing Philippa—resenting the five minutes it would take to put a cover on her medical device before jumping into the safe seas of Earth. She laughs a little as well before leaning her shoulder against Nikos’s as she explains, more quietly, “Wearing something that can’t get wet—how does that work on an away mission? Or during a battle, or a disaster?” She swallows. “Even in a hypothetical Starfleet that’s—better about accepting and accommodating disabilities than the Starfleet we’ve got?”

Nikos is silent for a moment, their eyes somber. “I see.” They hesitate, opening their mouth as though to say something else, but then close it again, reaching out to squeeze Philippa’s hand in silent sympathy, and for another minute the two of them sit in companionable silence.

“I did think I was good to get home,” Philippa adds. “When I told that person that I was. But then there was this hovercar going a bit too fast, while you and I were talking, and I just thought, _what if it crashes,_ and my stupid brain started panicking again.” She shakes her head. “I haven’t been so vulnerable to random environmental triggers, most of the time, this past month since I—this past month. Once I was flagging after the meeting, I guess, everything started hitting harder.” She shrugs.

Nikos wraps an arm around her, patting her back in a bro hug, and she leans into their shoulder again. “I’m sorry you have to deal with this shit, Phil,” they say.

Philippa smiles. “Thanks, Kokos.”

The two of them sit in silence for another minute, Philippa leaning a little more heavily on Nikos’s shoulder. The fading anxiety attack has left even more exhaustion in its wake, and she almost feels like she could fall asleep right here in this stairwell.

“Out of everyone I know,” she murmurs, shaking her head ruefully, “I am one of the most scrupulous about asking for help and not taking too much onto myself. And yet I still get into these situations where I think I’m all right and can handle things and think I’m all right and can handle things and then all of a sudden here I am crumpled up in a stairwell with PTSD symptoms so bad I have to question whether it’s a medical emergency. Why is it that I still end up like this? How…” She trails off, staring at the dingy concrete walls of the landing half a flight down.

“Because you live your life within a military organization that hasn’t come as far as it thinks it has in embracing the idea that care and support and connection are necessary to survival,” Nikos responds, promptly and tartly, “and so even a flagrant, 99th-percentile outlier such as yourself is only asking for and receiving about 60% of the care and support a person actually needs. If that.” Nikos spent four years in Starfleet in their twenties, got angry, and got out.

Philippa takes a breath to respond, then releases it again, staring at the grubby concrete.

Nikos adds, voice softening, “Plus…I mean. On the other hand. It’s not all human-factor. No matter how richly Starfleet deserves the criticism, it’s not all on Starfleet and it’s _certainly_ not all on you that you’ve ‘ended up like this’ today, Phil.” They reach up, gently, to stroke her hair. “Trauma and illness are— _hard_ to manage or predict. I mean, it’s just not possible to manage symptoms all the time.” Nikos shakes their head. “It’d be weird if you _were_ able to predict and circumvent every instance of your brain or your body giving you trouble. Now more than ever.” They scrub their face with their hand before reaching out to brush their fingers tenderly against Philippa’s cheek. “You came back from the dead all of one _month_ ago, Lili,” they say, voice half-choked, avoiding Philippa’s eyes. “You’re dealing with a bunch of mental and physical symptoms that are new; you haven’t done a damn thing wrong if they sometimes get to be too much unexpectedly.”

Philippa reaches for their hand, squeezing it lightly. They squeeze back.

“I’m here, Kokos,” she murmurs. “I may not be at my—at my strongest. But I _am_ here.”

Nikos clucks softly. “You and I might have differing definitions of _strongest_.” They reach out, enfolding her into their arms again, their voice growing choked again as they say, “I’m so glad—I’m just so _glad_ you’re here.”

Philippa snuggles deeper into their sweater, smiling as she breathes in the scent of them, sweat and clean wool and something warm and citrusy, their lotion or shampoo. “I am,” she whispers into their shoulder. “I’m here.”

They sit for several minutes in silence, Philippa stiffening only briefly when another hovercar goes by, this one at a safer speed. Nikos strokes her hair.

“Feel up to making our way downstairs?” they ask, gently, when she stirs again, stretching slightly against them. “Or would you like to sit here for a while longer?”

Philippa shakes her head, straightening up abruptly as a snatch of her body’s former guilt and anxiety tugs at her ribs. “You don’t need to stay with me all afternoon, Nikos. We’ll get downstairs and to the transporter station and I’ll be good to go. Just a minute, and I’ll be ready to go.”

Nikos peers at her. “I don’t have anywhere I need to be, Phil,” they say gently. “We can stay here as long as you need.”

Philippa bites her lip, then sinks against Nikos again, nestling her face against their shoulder. “Thanks, Kokos,” she murmurs.

Nikos gives her a light squeeze, and they sit for several more seconds in companionable silence.

“Do you remember what I said to you,” Nikos asks, “when I first came to see you in the hospital?”

“Before or after I cried into your shirt that it was like waking up to the apocalypse?” Philippa mumbles wryly.

Nikos reaches up absently to stroke her hair. “If I’d heard the news of the entire war over the course of a few days, I would have cried into someone’s shirt, too. And did, more than a few times, hearing about events as they happened.”

Philippa wonders, briefly, whose shirt. She still knows most of Nikos’s close friends, but she and Nikos rarely share casual news of their romantic lives with each other; however, they do tend to meet each other’s serious partners sooner or later, and the existence of a new serious partner isn’t a subject that has come up since Philippa’s return. Yet.

Out loud, she makes a noise of acknowledgement, leaning into the touch of their hand against her hair and melting closer against them. They stroke her hair again. “My point is, some time before, during, or after the apocalyptic-shirt-crying-into, I told you that we aren’t living together and we aren’t married, so there’s little chance that I would be roped into being a longterm caregiver for you more than was reasonable, and so, for the short term, I could be there. Wholly, drop-everything be there. Without either of us having to worry that I was giving more than I could. I was there to give you as much support as you needed, because that’s what best friends are for.”

Philippa nods against their sweater. “And you were.”

“ _Ah_ ,” Nikos says, shaking their head. “I was for about a week and a half, because that’s the amount of time it took you to bounce back onto your feet and be well enough be discharged to your own apartment, and aside from Agnes and a handful of your Starfleet friends still coming in clutch and fussing over you when they have time, you’ve been more or less taking care of yourself by yourself ever since. And--” They stop, deflating slightly. “Well, actually...I’ll be blunt, Phil, I can’t actually say something like ‘a week wasn’t enough to drain all the emotional support juice I had left,’ because let’s be honest, we’ve all been running on fumes for months, trying to support each other through this war. So it isn’t a matter of me having a, a full tank of emotional support juice, but…”

Philippa disentangles a hand to tap against Nikos’s side, her face still buried against their shoulder. “Slosh, slosh.”

Nikos bites back a grin. “ _Right_. Don’t have that. But the point about me not being married to you or living with you, that still stands. There’s a natural boundary there; as long as we both retain an ounce of self-awareness and common sense—both skills that I flatter myself that we’ve both gone far enough in life to accrue in spades—and our other support people, however exhausted we all are, are still around for us, my life isn’t going to be subsumed by trying to care for you.”

Philippa’s eyes blink open, and she stares at the blurry stitching of Nikos’s sweater a half centimeter away from her nose. Her field of vision, face against Nikos’s shoulder, is dim and peaceful, as though a secret cavern has been created by the press of her body against them, like the caves under the blankets she created for her action figures to play in when she was a child.

In the decades since she was that child playing pretend, she has successfully bluffed very real diplomats and generals, agents and assassins, subordinates and commanding officers alike.

Why is it that Nikos always seems to know exactly what she’s worried about, even so?

“We’re one of the people each of us is closest to,” Nikos continues, oblivious to Philippa’s consternation at their apparent mind-reading. “We’re…we’re family.”

Philippa nods against their chest. Though she maintains a fraught but loving relationship with her father and half-brother, Philippa hasn’t had legal family she would consider _family_ since the great-aunt who raised her died and her family imploded, sending her fleeing towards the stars. At least she has the memories of the years of her aunt’s care; Nikos has never had even as much loving legal family as that.

“And when the people closest to you go through hell,” Nikos continues, “that’s when you drop what you’re doing, as much as is possible and reasonable, and put them first for a little while. In other words, by dint of closeness, this is a time when you _should_ be getting my support, and by dint of ex-ness, you _shouldn’t_ have to worry about taking us down a bad path by accepting it.”

Philippa, who snorted slightly at ‘ex-ness,’ raises her head to look at Nikos. “How,” she says, “did you know that I was worried about that? About your—anyone’s—life being subsumed by trying to look after me?”

Nikos’s forehead scrunches in that way she’s always found adorable. “Because you said so?” they venture, eyes puzzled. “Several times, when we were chatting while you were in the hospital, you talked about how everyone was exhausted and you were going to try to seek support from multiple people so no one’d have to fuss over you too much?”

“Oh. But…”

“And you and I have both discussed, years ago, how we’d both been in relationships where we were giving far too much of the support on a far too longterm a basis without any attention being paid to boundaries and what we were capable of and so forth.” They caress her shoulder gently. “I know you have a horror of leaning too much on any one person and hurting them, Phil. Plus,” they add, “you’re a martial artist and former security officer who counts on your body doing what you want it to do, and who still carries around traces of Starfleet and, worse, your pre-Starfleet career’s retrograde views of disability as being something that an individual needs to deal with on their own so as not to trouble the people around them, no matter how hard you’ve tried to shake those beliefs off. All of which you and I have _also_ talked about.” A half-smile ghosts over Nikos’s lips. “Of course you’ve been worrying about your loved ones’ lives being subsumed by trying to care for you. I—well, I didn’t think _you_ didn’t know that _I_ knew that you were worried about that? I just…thought I was continuing our conversion.” Nikos shakes their head fondly. “You’re just so used to people looking at your eyes and not your hands, aren’t you?”

Now Philippa is the one to scrunch up her forehead, narrowing her eyebrows in a silent request for clarification.

“I _know_ how hard you work,” Nikos says, flapping their own hands hastily, as though taking back what they’ve said before explaining it, “to have captain friends, and friends outside the service. How hard you fight to stay connected to the outside world; to surround yourself with more support and a greater variety of perspectives than Starfleet officially encourages its captains to surround themselves with.”

Their voice goes tart again on these last words. People tend to assume, Philippa knows, that she and Nikos split up over their differences of opinion on Starfleet. Given that she and Nikos like to keep their private lives private, she generally doesn’t bother to explaining that this was not the case. Not exactly, anyway.

Nikos sighs softly, bringing Philippa’s thoughts back to the present. “But—a few video calls and a few letters a week…you’re still the captain of a starship, out there at the top of an isolated military command structure and interacting only with subordinates. And with admirals who you can run rings around,” they add, glancing meaningfully toward the wall between the stairs and the parking garage itself, where the semi-circle of captains and admirals said their goodbyes an hour ago.

Philippa snorts, thinking of the gambit she and Paris successfully ran on Wallis over the course of the lunch meeting to convince her that allocating additional resources to Sector 43 had been her own idea.

“ _That’s_ the environment you live in, aside from a few calls and letters and the occasional shore leave,” Nikos presses on, shaking their head. “Captain of a starship. You’re used to being able to—oh, to be be fairly upfront; I’ve seen you in action wearing your Captain hat and you’re still _you_ , not one of those leaders who steps into their role and turns into another person—you’re used to being able to be fairly upfront _while still knowing_ that you’ll be able to redirect any interaction in whatever way you like. You’re trustworthy, and so people trust you, and so they take you at your every word, and you can flick your hands like a stage magician and get them to see what you want them to see without ever actually lying, because you know what they want to see from you. _‘Watch my eyes, not my hands.’_ ”

Philippa peels away from Nikos slightly, feeling her body tense. “Are you accusing me,” she asks them in a quiet voice, “of being manipulative?”

“No, devious,” Nikos says cheerfully. “And I’ve always considered it to be one of your finer qualities. I mean, do you really think that you’d’ve been able to save the quadrant several times over without it?”

Philippa groans, sighing as she relaxes back against Nikos’s shoulder. “Nikos Georgiou, you give the strangest compliments sometimes.”

Nikos grins. “Point being,” they say, softening slightly as their eyes grow gentle, “I…well. I’m always watching your hands.” They hesitate again, glancing away, before adding, very softly, “It isn’t very hard, really. All it takes is—wanting to.”

Philippa thinks of Commodore Paris, who seems to read Philippa’s mood with a glance whenever their holo-calls connect; of Captain Tournier, who Philippa writes to specifically for the purpose of calling Philippa on anything he deems to be bullshit, and Agnes, who after fifty years of friendship can quite literally finish Philippa’s sentences. Of Captain Ayt, dead these last ten months, who never forgot Philippa’s passing comments and would wryly redirect Philippa’s own attention to them just the way Nikos just did; of Commander Burnham, Philippa’s first officer and very much her subordinate, who, to Philippa’s sometime-disgruntlement and sometime-gratitude, often seems to know what Philippa is thinking almost as well as Philippa does. Of most of her subordinates on most of her crews, who always seem to see whatever Philippa wants them to see. Of her father and her half-brother, who treat her like a riddle for the ages.

“Look, Phil,” Nikos says gently, “magician metaphors and captaining strategies aside, I know the whole getting-support thing is a thorny subject, given everything from…the way Starfleet chooses to be…to those past relationships gone awry, and I know how determined you are to be proactive and organized even in terms of seeking support, and to not put the responsibility for looking after you onto anyone else. But in terms of an actual crisis--which coming back from the dead after more than a year via space tardigrade _is_ , no matter _how_ well you’re handling it--there’s no shame in needing a little help with getting help. If it would be useful, I can check in with you every day for a while; see how you’re doing. Be your human-connection alarm clock.”

Philippa stares down at the bracelet at her wrist, feeling, as she often does when talking to someone outside of Starfleet, as though she has stepped into a whole different universe. In Starfleet, asking for personal support with trauma or illness or stress remains fraught, discouraged not only by general lingering stigma but also by the still-all-too-real threat of telling the wrong person and facing social censure or a stalled career or, at worst, a summary medical discharge. And, of course, Philippa would argue that asking for help from someone else in Starfleet carries risk to that person as well, given how overstretched anyone who is willing and able to offer practical or emotional support to others often ends up.

Philippa has to remind herself of her position as a role model for her subordinates and peers in the ‘fleet to convince herself to push a button that could save her own life. And here Nikos is, not only offering to _help_ Philippa—an offer that Philippa herself makes often enough to others—but offering for her to circumvent even the hazing-like hurdle of _asking_ for that help.

Meta-help. Help squared.

 _Offering_ it. As though she wouldn’t be a bad person for accepting such an extravagant offer. As though the possibility of her being a bad person for accepting it isn’t even a question.

But _would_ she be a bad person for—

 _Role model,_ Philippa reminds herself silently, thinking of all the times that she has stood in front of her subordinates on the Laccolith and the Archimedes and the Shenzhou, drawing on her courage, on the part of her that is really _her_ , to encourage her crewmates to take care of themselves and each other and, in order to say so, has implied or even outright stated that she is doing the same. _If you’d want one of your subordinates to accept such an offer—egregious luxury or not—if they were in your injured and traumatized shoes, then accept it for yourself._

 _But_ would _I encourage them to?_ Philippa’s dedication to being a role model bites both ways; she once laughed when a civilian counselor tried the “Would you talk to a friend the way you criticize yourself?” line on her, not missing a beat as she told the woman that she most certainly would; that she holds those on her ship to the same standards to which she holds herself.

But Nikos has thought this through, and stated that they _can_ offer this kind of help, at least for the moment. That if she accepts their offer, it won’t hurt them.

“Yeah,” she nudges herself to say softly. “Yes. That would—be helpful. Thank you, Nikos.”

Nikos smiles and reaches for her hand, squeezing it. She squeezes back.

“It’s what friends do,” they say easily, and Philippa crumples in on herself, air crushed from her throat and nausea surging through her.

“Phil?” Nikos’s voice sounds alarmed.

Philippa levers her torso back up from her knees, pressing a hand to her mouth and staring fixedly at the floor for several seconds before she manages, “I think I might need to get to a toilet now.”

Nikos wraps the arm of the hand that was holding hers around her and offers her their other hand. “Okay, let’s go.”

Philippa places her hand in theirs, and they pull her gently to her feet, supporting her down the half-flight of stairs to the landing and then skimming her across the floor toward the elevators, their arm so graceful around her waist that she feels more as though she is being guided by a dancing partner across a polished ballroom floor, floor-length gowns swirling around their feet, than being guided across a dingy concrete stairwell in her uniform trousers.

“I feel so elegant,” she mumbles, realizing belatedly that her words make less than no sense without the train of thought that precedes them. Nikos, however, either takes them at face value or ignores them, pressing the elevator button and sweeping them both into the elevator when it arrives seconds later.

The elevator is cramped and chilly, but Nikos’s arm is still around Philippa’s lower back, solid and warm, and seconds later they are scooting her out of the elevator as it arrives at their stop. A few more seconds of ballroom-floor-traversing gets the two of them past a row of hovercars and into the dingy bathroom, and Nikos deposits Philippa gently in front of a stall, their hand ghosting away from her back as they retreat to wait outside.

Philippa steps forward into the stall, staring gloomily at the toilet. Now that she’s actually made it to the bathroom, her stomach has, naturally, settled, and she leans against the side of the stall, closing her eyes and taking a long breath.

The Laccolith, the Archimedes, the Shenzhou: she has fought to encourage her subordinates to seek support—has fought the ugly instinctive judgmentalness that all too often rose inside her own chest when someone else _did_ need support, until it gradually lessened and lessened over the years—and it still wasn’t enough.

She thinks of the terror in Michael’s eyes the second before she nerve-pinched her. Seven years. Seven years Michael was on Philippa’s ship, and Philippa never bothered to find a way to help her get support for the horrific trauma she knew very well that she had been through and—knowing Sarek, as Philippa does know Sarek—likely had very little direct support in dealing with.

She had thought that giving Michael a supportive community, and a career path and training, and the space and encouragement to be Human, would be enough to help her heal. And she had thought it had _worked_ , right up until the moment she woke up on the floor of her ready room, Michael’s look of terror still haunting her eyes, and realized that it hadn’t worked at all.

Agnes’s words from when Philippa confessed her guilt a few weeks before echo in her head. _You weren’t her mother or her lover or her therapist, Phil. You were her captain, and her friend. It isn’t your_ job _to tend to the every emotional need of all hundred-odd members of your crew._

 _But I should have done more than I did,_ Philippa had insisted to her. _I_ was _her captain, and her friend._ Her stomach had twisted as she had echoed Agnes’s words, words that Agnes so-unknowingly echoed from Michael’s final statement at her trial.

_My captain…my friend…_

Philippa shakes her head fiercely as she tenses away from the stall wall, trying to clear the sound of Michael’s recorded broken voice from her mind.

If she had dedicated more of those seven years to encouraging Michael to heal; if she had been a better role model for healing, herself; if she had been more trustworthy and less _devious;_ if she had been a better captain and a better friend, would she have had a better chance of reaching a less-panicked Michael that day in her ready room? And if she had, would Michael have stayed safe from the admiralty’s attempt to pin the blame for an entire war on her?

Philippa has still not been able to entirely discern what their supposed legal argument was. Based on the trial transcripts, she’s pretty sure the official mechanism for pinning the Battle of the Binary Stars and all that followed on Michael was Michael’s unintentional killing of the Klingon on the beacon in self-defense. But none of the scapegoating would have been possible if they hadn’t been able to wave _‘the charge of_ _mutiny’_ across the trial proceedings like shocking and blasphemous smoke.

If Michael hadn’t been a disgraced mutineer, she wouldn’t have been as vulnerable to being preyed on by Gabriel Lorca’s months-long attempt to have sex with her, kill her, or, if the other Michael’s fate was anything to go by, both.

And if Philippa had been a better friend, maybe Michael wouldn’t have been a disgraced mutineer.

Philippa leans back against the wall, staring gloomily at the toilet again. _Michael Burnham is an adult and a Starfleet first officer,_ she reminds herself. _She made her own choices, traumatized or not. Including the choice to fucking nerve-pinch you and try to take over your ship. And if you think that you should’ve been a better role model to her about taking care of oneself and healing, then you should damn well be role modelling that now by not beating yourself up over the past._

99th percentile, 60% of the care and support a person actually needs, boundaries and beliefs and caring too much and not caring enough and—

Nikos’s words echo in her head. _It’s what friends do._

By that measure, it’s questionable whether Philippa has been a decent captain or a decent friend.

And it’s questionable, in a way that hits Philippa in a place deep in the pit of her stomach—a place she thought she’d be allowed to leave behind the day she first stepped into the gleaming halls of a Starfleet starship—whether some of the Starfleet captains and officers Philippa has respected and looked up to and trusted over the years have been decent captains or decent friends to her.

 _Starfleet saved you,_ she reminds herself sternly as she pushes her traitorously exhausted body away from the wall. _It didn’t have to be perfect for that._

* * *

When she steps out of the bathroom, Nikos is checking their pocket-sized PADD, tongue poking out slightly as they tap out a reply; like most Humans Philippa knows, they prefer dictation to typing, but intranet reception in the garage is notoriously finicky.

“Everything okay?” she asks.

Nikos finishes typing, smiling up at her as they drop the PADD back into their pocket, and she hears the soft _click_ of it bumping against the small antique compass they use as a watch-fob. “Yup, just checking in with work,” they say, “but all’s well there.” They tilt their head, regarding her with concern. “How are you feeling?”

“Fine.” She sighs. “Didn’t actually need to puke as soon as we actually got to the bathroom. Of course.”

Nikos grins in sympathy. “Of course,” they agree.

Philippa smiles, stepping forward and threading an arm around theirs. “I’m probably good to make it to the transporter station now, given that we made it to the toilet without my legs dramatically giving out on me or anything. And I wouldn’t mind being home—” On cue, a yawn rises in her throat. “I feel like I need a nap as badly as though I’ve run a marathon,” she admits, glancing down to give her traitorous body another dirty look.

Nikos smiles back, bumping their hip against hers. “Unless you’d prefer to be back at your own apartment specifically, I was going to offer for you to come over to my place. Gives me an excuse to fuss over you a little longer while you take that post-marathon nap,” they ask gently.

Philippa nods. “Thanks, Kokos,” she murmurs again.

Nikos presses a silent kiss to her temple. “Car’s on this level,” they say, pointing with their chin toward the middle of the long aisle.

As the two of them begin to walk together, Philippa realizes how heavily she is leaning against Nikos. “Why is my body giving me this much crap?” Giving voice to her anger helps defray the persistent whisper of guilt, and despair, and shame. “I’ve been so— _scrupulous_ this week. I’ve been trying to role-model taking care of oneself after trauma and injuries—god knows most of the people around me in Starfleet need to see that from a captain, especially now—”

Nikos makes a vehement noise of agreement and approval.

“I’ve been role-modelling so well that I’ve been treating myself like fucking Andorian crystal. I’ve done nothing but walk and sit. And this is how my body repays me for not overdoing it?”

Nikos is silent for a moment. “Not overdoing it is relative,” they point out simply. “You were…you got pretty damn hurt, Phil. There might…there might be only so much you can do, you know? Recovery isn’t linear, and so forth.”

They walk for a few minutes in silence, Philippa finding herself surprised that Nikos didn’t take the chance to point out that the norms she operates under as part of Starfleet have likely led to her pushing herself at least slightly harder than a civilian would be. Then again, _‘not overdoing it is relative’_ could be heard one of two ways; in context, Nikos might’ve been referring simply to the extent of her injuries now as opposed to at times when she’s been less severely injured, but hanging over the conversation is the fact that they both know full-well that _‘not overdoing it’_ is relative when it comes to Earth versus Starfleet standards of _‘overdoing it,’_ too.

Then, a second later: _Why was your reaction to them_ not _snarking about Starfleet norms surprise rather than relief?_

Philippa bites her lip.

 _Why did you_ ask _them ‘And this is how my body repays me for not overdoing it?’ in the first place if you didn’t want them to give you the answer that you thought they were likely to give?_

Maybe part of her wants to be around Nikos and her other friends outside the service more than she’s admitting to herself.

Being one of the only people in Starfleet putting herself through the humiliation that is trying to take care of herself more than is strictly necessary—not take care of another person, but take care of _herself_ more than is strictly necessary, as though she’s Andorian crystal rather than a perfectly competent former medic and security officer—

Well. It could be described as a somewhat lonely experience, if one wanted to describe it that way.

“Phil?” Nikos asks, as the two of them approach their hovercar.

“Mmhm?”

“Can I ask you something?”

“Mmhm.”

_“Elegant?”_

Philippa looks at the deeply, incredulously befuddled look on Nikos’s face and cracks up.

Once she’s finished laughing, she explains, “It was a train of thought thing. The way you were skimming me across the landing was so graceful, as though we traversing a ballroom with floor-length gowns swishing around our feet.”

Nikos begins to laugh. “Of course. How could I not have guessed?”

“Yeah, Nikos, how could you not have guessed?” They’re both laughing now, and Nikos gives Philippa one more one-armed squeeze before beeping the hovercar open.

They insist on digging the medical tricorder out of the first aid kid in the glove compartment and scanning her— “It’s been hours since you got the good read from the bracelet thingy, and no offense to your perennially excellent lipstick situation but you look like death right now, Phil”—and, after it reports no physical health emergency, they make sure she’s settled in the passenger seat before punching the car on and making their way out of the parking garage.

Late afternoon sun warms the car as it floats through the windy but sunny streets of San Francisco. Philippa brushes her fingers against the window, listening to the Denobulan oldies Nikos has cranked up on the radio and feeling as though the two of them have emerged into another world after the stuffy quiet of the restaurant and the echoing dimness of the garage.

If they have emerged into Nikos’s world, she decides, she is content to remain here for a while.

* * *

Nikos’s San Francisco apartment turns out to be a sunny third-floor walkup, the door opening onto a living room with PADDs and old coffeemugs scattered across the flat surfaces of the comfortably worn sublet furniture. They bend automatically to help Philippa remove her boots, kicking off their own flats as they scoot Philippa toward the mint green couch. Philippa finds herself tearing up unexpectedly at their practical acts of care. In so many ways, they and Philippa approach crises and problems and helping in the same way. In so many ways, they and Philippa approach life in the same way.

In so many ways. Just not all ways.

“Do you think you could eat or drink something?” Nikos asks, ticking options off on their fingers as they speak. “Juice, soda, smoothie, sports drink, fruit, crackers, tea, water?”

“A smoothie sounds wonderful. And I could go for some crackers. Thanks, Kokos.”

“You got it.” Nikos vanishes through the door into the kitchen, and Philippa settles onto the couch, scrutinizing the books on the nearest shelf—Nikos’s rather the apartment’s, she’s pretty sure, since they have titles like _A Programmer, A Function, And An Interpolated Curve Walk Onto A Space Station_ and _Infinite Spirals: Missives From The Intersection of Information Security and Vulcan Applied Mathematics_ —while quiet thunks and the familiar whirr of a household synthesizer come from the kitchen. Nikos emerges a minute later, handing Philippa the smoothie and the crackers and settling onto the couch next to her with their own plate of crackers and fruit.

“Thanks, Kokos.” Philippa her plate on the cushion next to her, starting in on the crackers.

“The food at lunch wasn’t bad, was it?” she asks, after the two of them eat for a few minutes in silence. “Though the atmosphere could’ve used some, uh, livening-up.”

Nikos snorts in agreement. “Perfect for fancy lunches between colleagues, so, you know, if that’s the clientele the people who own the restaurant are catering to, more power to ‘em, but, yeah, I wouldn’t go back except to pick up takeout.”

Philippa grins. “I wonder how many of our esteemed colleagues felt the same way, and were just thinking of making small talk and knowing which fork to use as being part of the job, and how many of them genuinely thought of that lunch as the most wild and social part of their day.”

Nikos laughs aloud. “Well, we all know which side Wallis falls on. And Ryu.” They tilt their head, considering. “I know Paris is one of your closest friends, and I respect the hell out of her, but I may have to smear her and say she seemed to be genuinely enjoying all the table etiquette and politicking as well.”

Philippa grins again, shaking her head. “Paris? Nah, never. She’s just a bureaucrat through and through—these days, anyway—and you know very well that she’s as neurodivergent as you are. Situations with defined social rules are her jam.”

Nikos nibbles a cracker thoughtfully. “All right, the commodore’s honor has been defended. What about Park?”

They spend the next few minutes gossiping, Philippa’s eyelids beginning to droop heavier and heavier as she finishes her smoothie.

“Time for that post-marathon nap, eh?” Nikos asks, reaching to take the glass from her hand.

Philippa flinches internally just slightly. Nikos’s words hit just shy of condescending; could almost be a joke about how Philippa didn’t actually run any sort of marathon, but rather just had a painfully normal day and nearly collapsed because of it—but she reminds herself that this is Nikos; they undoubtedly didn’t mean it in that sense, and are just continuing Philippa’s own rueful marathon joke from earlier.

Nikos must catch the look in her eyes, though, because all at once they’re saying gently, “Aw, Phil, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make fun.”

Philippa lifts her tired eyes to meet theirs and sees the genuine sympathy and care there. “How _do_ you always know what I’m thinking?” she asks, shaking her head slightly as she reaches to squeeze their hand in silent thanks.

No other friend in Starfleet or out of it, much though they may care about her—not Agnes, not Michael, not anyone—would have picked up on something like this.

Nikos merely says, “Not _always_ ,” settling themselves against the side of the couch and opening an arm to her, and she melts against their side.

“Get some rest, Lili,” they murmurs, their arm wrapping securely around her, and Philippa feels as though she is coming home after a long voyage as she snuggles against their shoulder, breathing the scents of citrus and wool.

Blinking sleepily, she gazes forward at the bookshelf again, smiling to herself. Math, infosec, math and infosec… A narrow volume near the edge of the shelf catches her eye, biological science rather than mathematical. _Bacterial Adaptation in Micro-Warp Environments._ She peers at the byline, already knowing what it will be. _Flora Wilson, PhD._

Closing her eyes, she burrows deeper against Nikos’s side, minutes passing softly as they stroke her hair in a soothing rhythm. She is vaguely aware of the motion of Nikos stretching their arm to reach for the soft blanket folded on the other side of the couch and spreading it over her before she falls into a deep and dreamless sleep.

* * *

Philippa wakes slowly, the memories of where she is and why returning as she stretches against the softness of the blanket spread over her. Outside, the sky shows the hues of early evening; she is alone on the couch, but warm light and quiet clattering noises are emitting from the doorway behind her. Sitting up slowly, she wraps the blanket around herself and pads across the living room into the kitchen.

Nikos is rummaging around inside a cabinet when she enters, emerging seconds later with a large pot. “Look who’s up!” they say happily, setting the pot on the counter and scooting across the room to open their arms to her. For the third time today, Philippa leans forward into their embrace, melting against them as their muscular arms wrap gently around her.

The two of them stand like that for several seconds until Nikos finally presses a kiss into Philippa’s hair and steps back to place their hands gently on her shoulders, surveying her. “How are you feeling?”

“Better.” Philippa smiles at them. “No more anxiety attack. Or flashbacks. Or whatever that was.” Flashbacks, PTSD-based anxiety attack, physical overexertion, memories, grief, all of which are still lapping at her like a constant bitter ocean but no longer rising to drown her.

Nikos smiles, the concerned lines in their forehead smoothing in relief. “I’m glad,” they say simply, stepping forward to hug her again, and the two of them stand like that for another long minute, silent in the calm after the storm.

“What’re you making?” Philippa says at last, peering with interest over their shoulder at the ingredients on the counter. “That doesn’t look like doro wat.”

“Ah, oh, right, I forgot dinner plans came up at lunch,” Nikos says, a caught-in-the-headlights look passing across their face as they and Philippa disentangle themselves from each other and Philippa tosses the blanket onto a chair. “The spices I bought will keep and the chicken hasn’t even been synthesized yet, so I thought that I’d make you laksa.”

“Aw, Kokos,” Philippa laughs, stepping forward to nuzzle her face against the sleeve of their sweater.

Nikos mumbles something sheepish and kisses her hair again before the two of them pull apart and head for the counter. Philippa washes her hands and rolls up her sleeves while Nikos sets the pot on the stove and asks the computer to play a pop station, pre-war Western Andorian synthpop flowing from the speakers as Nikos simmers broth and Philippa begins denuding the synthesized shrimp of their synthesized shells. Night continues to fall outside the windows as the two of them fall easily into the familiar rhythm of cooking together, the kitchen filling with the scents of lemongrass and galangal as the warm pools of light cast by the ceiling lamps over the table and stove catch in Nikos’s dark hair and turn their magenta sweater umber.

“I suppose you still listen exclusively to heavy metal?” they ask as Philippa chops fish cakes and they slide bean sprouts into the simmering broth, yelping softly as a drop of hot broth hits their hand.

Philippa snorts. “I do not listen _exclusively_ to heavy metal, Nikos Georgiou.” Nikos is waving their hand around surreptitiously, and Philippa flips on the faucet, flicking her fingers in it to make sure the water is running cold before nudging her hip against theirs to push them towards the sink.

Nikos sticks their hand under the water, sighing. “I suppose you still listen _predominantly_ to heavy metal, Philippa Georgiou?”

Philippa grins as she takes their place at the stove, lowering the noodles carefully into the hot broth. “You guess correctly. There’s this great new space metal group from Moldova playing in Sacramento next week; I’m going to try to transport up to the concert that night if I can get away from work in time. You’re welcome to come with.”

“Thanks for the invite,” Nikos deadpans, “but I think I’ll listen to something I find more pleasant, like the upstairs neighbors’ vacuum, or seagulls arguing over a cracker.”

“You’re missing out, Kokos.” Philippa pokes her nose into the cabinet to the right of the stove to find it empty aside from a small lizard figurine, an empty salt-shaker, and a stack of rainbow-patterned cloth napkins. “Where do you keep your soup bowls?”

“I’ll get them.” Nikos wipes their hand carefully dry before reaching for a stack of bowls in the cabinet above the sink.

Philippa lifts the pot off the heat onto a cool burner as Nikos retrieves fresh-squeezed juice from the refrigeration unit, pouring them both tall glasses. The two of them carry their bowls and glasses into the living room to eat, Philippa feeling her nausea fading even further as the creamy heat of the laksa soothes her tight throat. Nikos flicks on the apartment’s holo-projector, changing stations until they land on a fluffy sitcom about a space station repair crew, and they and Philippa lean against each other in the center of couch, laughing along with the laugh track.

When they’ve both finished second helpings, Nikos ventures back into the kitchen to cover the pot and stick it in the refrigeration unit as Philippa clicks off the projector, leaving the living room lights off as she reaches for the blanket again, spreading it over both of them when Nikos returns and snuggles back against her.

“You want to crash on this lovely and only slightly saggy couch tonight?” they offer, wrapping an arm around her.

Philippa nods against their shoulder. They’ve both known, ever since Nikos attested to their capacity to be the one to help her today and then needed to do so to the point of helping her take off her own shoes, that Nikos wouldn’t be depositing her back at her own apartment tonight, but a formal affirmation of this knowledge still needed to be made.

“Thanks, Kokos,” she murmurs.

Nikos, perhaps recalling the system-crash that resulted last time they used a phrase like _It’s what friends do_ in Philippa’s auditory input matrix, simply squeezes her shoulders lightly, dropping another kiss into her hair.

They sit in silence for another few minutes, Philippa enjoying the luxury of full and steady breaths.

“I was scared,” she says, very softly.

“Hm?”

“When I used the damn bracelet. Every time I use the damn bracelet. I’m scared they’re going to tell me, _Yes, this is the time when your body is falling apart on you for good, not just your mind.”_ She exhales a long breath. “And—and yet I’m scared the other way, too. That they’re going to tell me—once again— _No, it’s just your brain fucking you over again._ Because—look, I know that they don’t mean _‘It’s all in your head’—_ I know that even Starfleet has come a long, long way from the times when psychological trauma and illness were considered not real at all—but just…it feels like a reminder of how very badly my brain wants to fuck me over, for it to fuck around with the rest of me as well.” She shakes her head. “Asshole.”

Nikos snorts lightly. “Asshole is right.” They leans their face against her hair, murmuring sternly against the curve of her skull, “Be nicer to Philippa.”

Philippa giggles despite herself. “Maybe it’ll listen to you, Kokos.”

“Maybe.”

Silence.

“You do, um—” Nikos hesitates. “You do— _know_ , don’t you?”

Philippa raises her eyebrows. “Know what, Kokos?”

“You’re not—it’s—” She can hear in Nikos’s voice that they’re battling frustration. “It’s not just you, Phil, and it’s not norm—” They stop; restart. “What you’re dealing with, it isn’t something that you—should be dealing with. It isn’t something that happens to everyone.”

Philippa feels her forehead scrunch up again, only semi-visible to them in the darkness. “I don’t follow.”

“Starfleet, it’s Starfleet, it’s always fucking Starfleet,” Nikos grinds out, stiffening away from her slightly.

Philippa feels her eyes widen as she stares at their dim form, only a few centimeters from her on the couch, expression half-shrouded in darkness.

 _It’s always fucking Starfleet—_ it isn’t as though the fundamental fact of Nikos being angry with Starfleet is surprising, but the exclamation is; usually they’re at more of a low simmer, and they certainly managed to gladhand the admirals and commodores and captains perfectly blithely at lunch only a few hours ago. Much like Philippa, Nikos is disinclined to wholly wear a façade; if they were able to chat pleasantly with the admirals and earnestly discuss their professional collaboration at lunch, then that means that their outright anger at Starfleet must have been at a much lower simmer mere hours ago.

She wonders what has happened between the lunch meeting and now that has increased Nikos’s frustration with Starfleet so much. Maybe it was one of the messages they got on their PADD at some point between the parking garage and dinner.

“There was a study,” Nikos continues, voice softly seething, “a few years back, about the mechanisms through which Human psychological stress and trauma cause physical symptoms in the body. The researchers recruited a bunch of people with different lifestyles with varying stress levels in varying environments—civilians in a number of fields, Earth paramedics and public safety, Starfleet servicemembers from all divisions, members of civilian space research agencies—” They pause. “Did you hear about this?”

Philippa closes her eyes, trying to remember. Beyond _Stress causes both immediate physical symptoms and longterm cellular damage,_ something that Humans have known for literal centuries, she comes up empty for any particularly novel discoveries about this topic. “No, Kokos, I don’t think I’ve heard about this particular study.”

“When they did the intake forms,” Nikos presses on, “they found notable discrepancies in whether people who had been through stress and trauma experienced primarily psychological symptoms, like low mood and nightmares, or primarily physical symptoms, like headaches and fatigue. And do you want to know what was an enduring predictor of which kind of symptoms they had?”

“I have a feeling you’re going to tell me.”

“Starfleet,” Nikos says. “People in Starfleet tend to manifest stress and trauma physically, because _you_ are the people who still feel compelled to dismiss your psychological symptoms.”

Philippa opens her mouth to point out that physical symptoms also just tend to join psychological symptoms at greater levels of stress, then remembers what Nikos said about the study including Earth emergency responders, and closes it again.

“I didn’t,” she says at last. “Hear about that study.”

Nikos smiles that lopsided smile, hazy in the darkness. “It was in the news on Earth.”

They sit in silence for several moments.

“And you think that my physical psychological-trauma symptoms are piling onto my physical injury symptoms because of that. Because of Starfleet, and all that comes with it.”

“I almost sent you the study,” Nikos says softly. “Back when it came out. I’d spent years listening to you saying you were all right until all of a sudden you were throwing up and crying. So I read the study, and of course I thought about you.” Their voice goes quiet; hoarse. “And about Flora.”

Flora, Chief Science Officer of the USS Laccolith, Nikos’s closest friend from their years in Starfleet, best woman at Philippa and Nikos’s wedding. Flora, the ghost sitting beside Philippa as she presses the bracelet button, who died so quickly after being diagnosed with radiation poisoning, the kind that not even modern medicine could treat once it had gone so far. She had thought that the headaches and nausea plaguing her for weeks after a routine away mission had been stress; hadn’t even gone to sickbay for a scan. With everyone in the mess hall laughing about their own headaches and nausea and joint pain and sleeplessness, why would she?

Philippa extends her arms silently to Nikos, and they unhunch, melting back against her. She rubs their back, and they sit for several more moments in silence.

“The war—” Philippa stops, then starts again. “I’ve been thinking about what it was like for you—” She shakes her head, re-starting again. “No, but—I _don’t_ know. What it must have been like for you. Having friends still in the service, hearing the—the casualty lists, while not really being in the loop any more—” She trails off, awkward. “I’m sorry. I know you’ve been…grieving a lot of people, these past two years. And—if you’re like me, you’ve been thinking about people from—longer ago, too.”

She has said something like this before—said it miraculously less-awkwardly, too; she’s always been at her most competent during the sharp focus of slight crisis, and that goes for emotional competence and emotional crises as well—during those first blurry days in the hospital, the week of the armistice of the war she’d missed, when she cried into Nikos’s shirt more than once, and their eyes had looked like bruises and they’d cried too.

But, she feels, it bears repeating.

“Yeah,” Nikos says simply, and they hold each other in silence for several more minutes. Philippa feels rather than hears Nikos sob once, then again, and then their breathing finally steadies again, the hand gripping onto her upper back unclenching slightly and their thumb beginning to idly stroke her shoulder over the fabric of her uniform jacket. “It’s good to—have you here in San Francisco, Lili,” they say roughly. “For a while.”

Philippa nods in acknowledgement, rubbing soothing circles on their back. “I am. I’m here.”

For a few more minutes, they sit in silence, Philippa feeling the rhythm of Nikos’s breathing under the motion of her hand.

“And I’m very glad,” Nikos continues at last, just a sliver of tartness back in their voice again as they unsquish themselves slightly from her and lean back against the back of the couch, side still pressed against hers, “that Agnes and I are here in San Francisco too, to be good outside-of-Starfleet friends to you, right now.”

Philippa settles back as well, leaning against their side and lying her head against their shoulder, blinking up at the ceiling. “Even amid all the resources of Starfleet, you really still worry I’m not getting enough support?”

“I stand by what I said,” Nikos murmurs. “I’m so glad to know how hard you fight to take care of yourself; how much you care about being a role model. But in Starfleet, even a flagrant 99th-percentile outlier like yourself is only getting fifty percent of the support a Human being actually needs, if that.”

“Didn’t you say sixty, earlier?”

“Yeah, well, I’ve downgraded my assessment.”

Another minute of silence passes by in the dim quiet. Philippa blinks up at the ceiling as she mulls over her next question, genuinely curious. “You said yourself that Paris has been looking out for me, just like you and Agnes have. And—you really think the people at Starfleet Medical aren’t going to fuss over me just as much as any other doctor would?”

Nikos snorts, a little sadly. “I have no doubt that the doctors at Starfleet Medical are taking excellent care of you. All those many, _many_ one and a half hours that you see them, two whole times a week.” They rub a thumb over her sleeve again. “Phil, where is your counselor? Your support group?”

“You know as well as I do that Starfleet Counselling is overstretched after the war. I sit in on a task force that’s working on fast-tracking more counsellors—”

She can feel Nikos tensing in frustration against her. “You were _dead_ a month ago, and they’re asking _you_ to help _them_ figure out how to help others instead of getting you help yourself—”

There’s frustration, but no rancor, in their voice; sliding into open argument with them is almost as familiar as sliding into their arms, and Philippa licks her lips, as though she can taste the bitter comfort of it. “They didn’t _ask_ me, _I_ jumped in on the project because I wanted to help—”

“Of course you _wanted to help;_ Starfleet is full of good people who _want to help,_ and they chew you up and spit you out, or tell you that the best way to help the quadrant is to do things no good person should agree to do, at peril of being discharged and losing your community—”

“You always talk as though Starfleet is some kind of scourge,” Philippa snaps, “when you know as well as I do that their systems and standards have _always_ been tenfold what any equivalent organization has—”

“And that’s _good enough_ for you, is it? Better than what you spent your youth doing, that’s _good enough?”_

So much for bitter comfort. Philippa gives Nikos a dirty look that she hopes communicates _Hey, out of bounds._

Nikos deflates. “I’m sorry, Phil,” they say, voice going soft again. “I—the last thing I should be doing when your body is being a dick to you is throwing that shit in your face.”

Philippa shakes her head gently, tilting her head up to press a kiss against their temple. “I haven’t forgotten any of the things that happened to you, while you were in Starfleet,” she says softly. “Or what happened to Flora, or the others.” She meets their eyes in the darkness. “You have every right to be angry.”

“But not to use things that happened to _you_ against you while you’re still drained from an anxiety attack.” Half-wry, half-guilt-stricken.

Philippa considers this for a moment. “No,” she agrees simply. “But to be angry, yes.”

Nikos smiles sadly, opening their other arm to Philippa, and she snuggles deeper into their sweater again, letting them wrap their arms around her as the two of them breathe together in silence. In the kitchen, the hum of the apartment’s refrigeration unit clicks on, then eventually off again.

“I thought,” Philippa says quietly, after a while, rearranging herself just enough to see their face, “that when you agreed to contract with Starfleet, that meant that you—thought more of it than you did before.”

“That decision…it was just the cynic in me, Phil,” Nikos says softly. “And the, the…the mediocre businessperson, I guess. Maybe if I was stronger, more capable, better at what I do, I’d be able to find a way to feel like I was doing just as much good just by contracting with the non-Starfleet search and rescue efforts as I could by contracting with them _and_ with Starfleet. I mean, I wasn’t about to harp on this earlier—god knows you have a right to your grief and your fears about wearing that—” they nod at her bracelet—“but you do _know_ that, technologically and otherwise, some of the non-Starfleet space organizations are lightyears apart from Starfleet when it comes to accommodating, to _welcoming_ people with injuries and illnesses and disabilities? Starfleet is more retrograde than it likes to tell itself it is.” They sigh, deflating again. “But Starfleet…Starfleet has the most ships; the most resources. And a good deal of the most experienced people, and—the most ethical ones. The most determined ones.” They regard her with another lopsided smile. “Starfleet officers…you’re a good crowd, most of the time.”

“It’s Starfleet you have a problem with,” Philippa says simply.

Nikos sighs quietly, still with that half-heartbroken smile. “Starfleet took its structure wholesale from Old Earth militaries, and its function follows its form.”

Philippa nods against Nikos’s chest, a silent acknowledgment that she has no further arguments against this point.

“And speaking of functions and forms,” Nikos adds quietly, “how does the way that Starfleet impels you to treat yourselves and each other affect the way Starfleet makes decisions that alter the course of galactic history, or change life for planets or space stations or people?” They sigh, their eyes meeting Philippa’s squarely. “Asking,” they continue gently, “for a friend.”

Philippa thinks of the panic in Michael’s eyes seconds before she nerve-pinched her; the anger that surged through Philippa like a tide afterwards as she all but called Michael nothing more than an experiment gone wrong. Reaching for Nikos’s hand, she squeezes it gently, exhaling as she leans her head back on their shoulder in tacit acknowledgment of their point and its magnitude.

They sit in silence for another few minutes, listening to the hum of the refrigeration unit and the quiet sounds of hovercars flying by outside.

“You know,” Nikos says, “The other night I transported over to Crete for dinner with some Human friends I went to school with. They’re married now, both civilian researchers, and they’ve lived on one of the deep space stations for, oh, over a decade now. Right now they’re kicking around on Earth for another couple months til the evacuation order is officially lifted in that sector and they can get back out there.” Nikos shifts slightly as they use their free hand to tuck an escaped strand of hair behind their ear.

“Great night. Great food. Fascinating to hear what they’ve been up to. Just about everything in their lives on the station is different from mine on a daily basis—different food, different gravity, different social norms—” Nikos’s face twists slightly. “And all I could think about was how I felt less like I was talking to someone from another world than I did, over the last few weeks in San Francisco, when I was rubbing elbows with Starfleet officers stationed right here on Earth.” They shake their head.

“I can’t—even imagine what it’s _like_ to be you, Phil,” they say quietly, head tilted to the side and forehead crinkling as though they’re struggling to comprehend it. “99th percentile to, I don’t know, 20th, and back again, over and over again. Straddling two different worlds, horrifying everyone in one world by how much care you take of yourself, and everyone in the other by how little care you take of yourself.”

Philippa mulls this over for a moment. “I…hadn’t thought of it like that.” She blinks, considering. “But it _is_ —” She shrugs. “Dissonant, sometimes.” A sigh. “And I wouldn’t say I’m in the 99th percentile of Starfleet servicemembers seeking support,” she adds. “More like 85th.”

“Is that pride I hear?” Nikos asks. Their voice is jokingly suspicious, but also, underneath, a little sad.

“Hmm,” says Philippa. “Maybe. I don’t know.”

Another silent minute goes by.

“You know,” Nikos says quietly, “The hell of it is, just a few days ago I was chatting with Amanda—my friend Amanda, not Burnham’s foster mom—”

Philippa snorts. “Yes, I figured.” Another civilian scientist in deep space, Amanda’s station is close enough to the Sol system that it was never evacuated, and she and Nikos have been confined to letters and holo-chats.

“Anyway, we got around to chatting about trauma and recovery,” Nikos continues, “and the whole problem of how to all support each other when everyone is drained, and—I feel like talking to her about trauma and support probably feels to _me_ like what talking about it with _me_ probably feels like to _you_.” They laugh, shaking their head. “I was talking about not having a full tank of emotional support juice, and not wanting to be too much of a drain on others’ emotional support juice—”

Philippa grins. “Slosh.”

“Right. Well, she laughed too, but then she got serious, and said she thought the way I was thinking about it was too…transactional, you know? Like, that emotional support isn’t actually some _thing_ that needs to be given and received in equal measure, and that seeing one person’s emotional-support gain as another person’s energy loss basically meant I was seeing receiving support as inherently hurting someone else.” Nikos shakes their head. “And I just…never in a million years would that have occurred to me about the way I’d been thinking about it?” They sigh. “And—like I said, that was just a few days ago. I’m not sure I’ve really been able to…parse it yet.”

Philippa watches them in silence, and they sigh again, looking down at their hands. “I mean, honestly…part of me was like, _‘Yeah, one person’s gain_ is _another person’s exhaustion! That’s the way it is, all right.’”_ They scrub a hand over their face. “There was a war, and I’m tired, Phil. Everyone’s tired, and it can be stressful and tiring trying to look out for others, right? Like, caring for other people—it takes thought and time and analysis and effort. For me it does, anyway.”

Philippa nods. “For me as well.”

Nikos shrugs. “And—often it does feel like there’s a loss there, of energy and time, no matter how fiercely I want to help everyone I love or how meaningful or fulfilling it is to be able to do so.”

Philippa nods.

“But...” Nikos sighs again, brow wrinkled. “I think Amanda saw me looking dubious, and she pointed out that when I did search and rescue work—so long ago in-person, and now, busting my programmer butt trying to support the people who are doing it—” Nikos waves a hand through the air. “She asked me if I thought of the people who needed my help as taking something away from me. And—of course not, right? Of course when you’re working during a disaster, you don’t see the people you’re helping as _hurting you_ by _needing help.”_

Philippa nods again, fervently. “Of course not,” she says softly.

“And—of course I don’t see you, or Amanda, or Agnes, as _hurting_ me by needing help, either.” Nikos squeezes Philippa’s hand. “Of course not. Just—I _am_ tired, and looking out for the people around you _does_ take time and energy, and I don’t know how to think about those calculations on a day-to-day basis if not in terms of energy reserves and emotional support juice and—” They break off, sighing again. “I’ve just never thought about that the way she talked about it, you know?” There’s a laugh in their voice as they say, “I think she melted my tiny mathematician mind. _Scientists,”_ they add, in a tone of jokey frustration.

Philippa laughs, squeezing their hand in sympathy, before both them grow serious again, Philippa watching Nikos’s expression, still puzzled and thoughtful in the dim light.

“So. Long story short, there are people in this galaxy who make me think about all of this in ways that seem alien to me as well,” Nikos says, smoothing a hand over Philippa’s jacketed shoulder. “Ways that, even to me, on initial instinct seem too…kind, almost.” They laugh roughly. “But—I _want_ to be kind. So, I’ll…keep thinking about all it, I guess.”

Philippa tilts her face up to press a kiss against their hair. “Let me know how it goes, Kokos.”

Nikos smiles. “I will.”

Philippa leans her cheek back against their shoulder, staring up at the darkened ceiling of their sublet apartment, the apartment that they rented partially to make it easier to attend Starfleet meetings once they had agreed to contract their skills to an organization that had hurt them so badly, and partly to be closer to Philippa during her recovery. Starfleet and Philippa and Nikos; San Francisco and Vulcan and Burnham and Sarek and the Lorca who was so obviously what he was and received the admiralty’s indulgence anyway; who dragged Burnham into a universe where her best choice to save the universe—all the universes—was to give herself up to him, even only in pretense, even briefly, but still in a way that meant that every horrific way in which he saw her become a part of their plan.

Aloud, Philippa says, “I’d say that…oh, you know, that I was _‘glad to have you as a friend as I keep trying to make Starfleet into a better version of itself.’_ Things like that. But that isn’t what you want to hear from me, is it?” she continues quietly. “Function and form. You agreed to contract with Starfleet because our quadrant is shattered and you’re trying to save who you can. Not because you want any part in it. Not because you ever will.”

Nikos stiffens slightly against her, and she lifts her head from their shoulder to look at their face.

“I forget, sometimes.” Their voice is very soft. “That you can read me as well.”

Philippa feels a lump in her throat. “When I want to,” she echoes in a whisper, turning away.

The refrigeration unit clicks off again.

“And you’re still a Starfleet captain,” Nikos says. Their voice is barely louder than a breath. “After what they did to Burnham. After they nearly destroyed a—a planet.”

Philippa is silent for a minute, trying to think what to say. The anger that has roiled inside her ever since she woke and heard what Starfleet had done, what Starfleet had become, nudges against her ribs.

“I’m angry, Nikos,” she says, just as quietly. “I am more furious than I can put into words.”

Nikos is silent, tilting their head toward her in unspoken question. Philippa sighs as she turns back toward them, spreading their hands. “You said it yourself. Starfleet has resources and they need skilled and trained people to use them. Especially skilled people who—who care more, perhaps, than Starfleet encourages them to care.”

Nikos smiles that lopsided smile, brushing their thumb over their clasped hands.

“And—” Philippa hesitates. “I do believe in Starfleet. What it is. What it can be. What it stands for. Still.”

Nikos’s voice is impossibly soft. “Even after what it’s done to you.”

“Starfleet saved me,” Philippa says. “In every possible way.”

Now it’s Nikos’s turn to turn their face away.

Philippa sighs, tamping down frustration. “You know quite well that if it wasn’t for Starfleet, I probably wouldn’t be here to argue with you. People who run sketchy private star-system security firms don’t tend to treat the people who rat them out kindly. Starfleet took me to offer me protection as much as because they wanted my skills.”

Nikos says nothing, and Philippa closes her eyes for a moment, thinking of the moment when she first set foot in her first Starfleet ship, walking down its gleaming halls in wonder.

“I knew Starfleet wasn’t perfect even then, you know. Joining Starfleet meant fighting in its battles, and it’s a rare soldier who wholly trusts the higher-ups sending her and…and her enemies…into fire, and blood, and funerals.” She opens her eyes. “But, when you’ve spent the first part of your adult life in a certain kind of environment—”

Nikos says nothing, and Philippa stares out the window, thinking of the other Michael Burnham, a woman whose story she knows as she knows her own. Philippa fled Earth for space after her family imploded, and found blood and death instead of the future she was looking for. But while the other Michael’s life ended, then, after she fell in love with what she thought would be a better future and found blood instead, Philippa was rescued abruptly into shining starship hallways and medic training and _Starfleet doesn’t fire first_ and a chance to help the quadrant instead of hurt it.

“Starfleet saved me,” she repeats. “I could see that it had flaws, but in comparison with the private star-system militaries, I never even considered that it could be fundamentally flawed. And once it did, it felt almost impossible to give credence to the idea.”

“And now?” Nikos asks simply.

“Now, I give credence to the idea,” Philippa says, feeling her own lopsided smile break across her face. “But that doesn’t change the fact that I remember what Starfleet really _is._ What it can be.”

Nikos stares out the window, still not meeting her gaze. “And the fact that Starfleet—saved you—”

Their voice wavers slightly on the words, and Philippa realizes, belatedly, that the anguish on their half-shrouded face might be less about Starfleet than about the reminder of the circumstances that led a younger Philippa there.

“And then _accepted_ your service and your skills—that doesn’t bother you?”

Or not. _Are we really having this argument again?_ “I still don’t see that as the scandal you act like it is,” she replies, trying and failing to keep some tartness out of her own tone.

“I’m not saying it’s a scandal. Or even particularly unethical in and of itself _.”_ Nikos’s voice matches her own tartness as they turn to meet her gaze again, and Philippa feels a touch of relief to be back on more solid, bickering ground. “Just— _to me,_ if someone is saved by something, and that thing then accepts loyalty engendered by gratitude…that’s a fundamental warning sign.” Philippa opens her mouth, and Nikos finishes hastily, “I know. I know you don’t see it that way.”

Philippa sighs. “I still think you’re reading too much into it, Kokos. My life was in danger. And I’d participated in some shitty, shitty things. People in Starfleet saved my life, and helped me become a more principled version of myself. I was grateful. And I’m still in Starfleet because I believe in what they do,” she lists, ticking off components of her life on her fingers. “You make it sound like ‘Starfleet’ is some sort of conscious, manipulative entity.”

“First of all, given that you were the one who decided to make that report, alone, I’d say that you helped _yourself_ become a more principled version of yourself before Starfleet had anything to do with it. But that’s beside my point. And my point—” Nikos scrunches up their eyes. “I’m—aw, fuck, Phil, I’m a mathematician, not a word-writer-explainer-person. I don’t know how to—” They wave a hand around. “I’m not saying that Starfleet is a malicious entity that has been secretly manipulating you for two-plus decades. I’m saying—agh.” Nikos makes a frustrated noise, waving a hand through the air again. “I’m saying that the system that is Starfleet is _not_ designed to _not_ take advantage of the loyalty of someone like you.”

Philippa chews this over a minute. Against expectation, this final formulation makes more sense than Nikos’s usual grumbling about Starfleet supposedly taking advantage of a younger Philippa.

“Maybe you have a point,” she says, quietly. “About it _not_ being designed to _not_ to take advantage of people like me. Or Saru. Or Burnham.”

Nikos looks surprised. “You—” They goggle. “Wow, I can’t believe that worked.”

Philippa snorts. “Maybe you’re more of a word-writer-explainer-person than you think you are.”

Nikos smiles lopsidedly. “I’ll take the win.”

Yet another few moments of silence elapses, but this time, Philippa feels that it’s a silence that could be called comfortable again.

“I know it’s not what you want to hear,” she murmurs, “but—I _am_ glad to have a friend with an external view of Starfleet. Especially at a time like this. Even if it is a trivialization to say so.” She closes her eyes. “I’m not about to forget that Starfleet Command nearly blew up a planet,” she says quietly. “I hope you know me better than that.”

Nikos squeezes her hand back. “I do.” They smile that lopsided smile. “And I’m glad—fuck, Phil, I’m so fucking sorry for everything that’s gone wrong but oh, Phil, a month ago I went to sleep thinking you were gone and got woken up at three o’clock in the morning by some of the best news of my life and fuck, Phil, I’m just glad you’re here. In Starfleet or out of it, I’m—I’m glad this universe has you in it again.” They reach their other hand to stroke her hair. “And that I do.”

“I’m glad I have you, Nikos,” Philippa whispers, feeling her eyes suddenly stinging. “I—I’m a very lucky person, to have a friend—to have family like you. And I’m grateful for the—” She laughs a little, wiping wetness from her eyes. “For the sacrifice of some of your emotional-support juice. Regardless of whether it’s a healthy endgame philosophical metaphor. I’m grateful to have a—” She has to pause for a moment before continuing. “To have a safe harbor with you.”

“Of course you do,” Nikos murmurs, rubbing their thumb absently over their clasped hands.

Another short silence.

“It’s when you go back to space,” Nikos says, their voice impossibly soft, “that—well. That’s when I let go—” Their voice catches. “Of your hand, again.” They squeeze her hand tightly.

And here both they are, again, at the core of it all.

For all her faults, Philippa has never been selfish in her love. For all their faults, neither has Nikos.

Nikos might have been able to bear being married to a wife with a safe planetside position in Starfleet, and they might have been able to bear Philippa risking her life each day in space if she was risking herself for something they more wholeheartedly believed in. It was the waiting, every day, they had finally whispered to her, staring at their hands. It was the waiting for the phone call or the knock on the door that would tell them she was gone, while knowing that if and when it came, it would come because the woman who was Nikos’s universe had given her life for something they didn’t even believe in.

By love and by choice, Philippa is a Starfleet captain. Nikos loved her too selflessly to try to make her into something she is not. And Philippa loved them too selflessly to try to find a way to stay with them when staying with them only brought them deeper and deeper pain.

“But until then—” Nikos squeezes Philippa’s hand again, and she squeezes back. “I’m here for you. I can be here. And I am. I’m here.”

Philippa squeezes their hand again, smiling, and leans back against them. They wrap an arm around her, and Philippa rests her head against their chest, listening to the soothing rhythm of their heartbeat.

“Besides,” Nikos adds quietly, a half-smile in their voice, “you’re one of the most competent captains in Starfleet, and in the 99th percentile of decent people in the universe. Our quadrant is in pretty desperate straits right now, and supporting you in doing your thing might be one of the most effective ways for me to help millions of people.”

“99th percentile in human decency, hmm?” Philippa asks.

“Oh, can it with the false modesty, you know it’s true.”

Philippa considers arguing that this particular modesty is anything but false, then sighs, deciding to take the jocular compliment in the spirit in which it is meant rather than angst over the fact that, even post-divorce, and despite all of Nikos’s criticisms of the organization in which Philippa is a captain, they really do sometimes seem to put her higher on a pedestal than they, perhaps, should.

“Well, you’re at the 100th percentile of human decency, Nikos,” she tells them, snuggling against their shoulder.

“There’s no such thing as being at the 100th percentile and you know it.”

“How would you know, Earth kid? Maybe there are spatial anomalies out there that allow the possibility of a 100th percentile. Maybe I’ve encountered a paradoxical gravimetric phenomenon that creates it.”

“That’s your Starfleet science, huh?”

“Math is different in space.”

Nikos snorts faintly, hugging Philippa close.

It registers faintly in the back of Philippa’s mind that Nikos informing Philippa that they’re supporting her in part as a practical way of helping as many people as possible might seem cold, even horrifying, to others, but to Philippa, such a statement is anything but. _This_ is why--one of many reasons why--Philippa loves Nikos. Nikos _gets it._ They understand what Michael so catastrophically disagreed with Philippa about all those months ago on the Shenzhou, that who Philippa is is secondary to what she chooses to do.

With a pang, Philippa remembers the panic in Michael’s eyes as Michael told her, _Your life, Captain. Yours._

She isn’t surprised that Nikos was one of the few people in her life who reached out to Michael after she was gone, even though Michael had been convicted of the mutiny of Philippa’s ship and blamed implicitly by the admiralty for the death of Philippa herself. Nikos, like Agnes, might _get it_ when it comes to Philippa’s conviction that her place in the universe is to help others, but, also like Agnes, they probably _got it_ when it came to Michael’s panicked, partially-mutiny-engendering feelings about Philippa’s conviction about her place in the universe, too.

Philippa and Nikos embrace tightly for another minute, Philippa feeling as though she is cradled in this moment, Nikos’s arms around her and her arms around them as stars shine in through the window and hovercars hum by outside, the sound of them longer knifing her through with fear.

Sighing in contentment, she finds herself thinking about words—Nikos's and Agnes's and Michael's, spoken and unspoken, jokily explanatory and otherwise, between languages and through memories. Despite the pain that this latest grief has hammered between Philippa and the languages she loves and carries with her, here those words still are for her, helping her navigate her points of connection with the loved ones she shares those languages with, as she lets the words that have been part of her life since childhood help her heal.

Finally, Nikos yawns, and Philippa chuckles. “Time for bed, Earth kid?” she asks as they relax back apart.

Nikos grins, flicking on a lamp as they lever themselves off the couch. Its low, warm light spreads through the living room as they head for their bedroom door. “I’ll grab you some pajamas.”

“Oh, I know that look,” Philippa calls after them as they disappear into the bedroom. “If you give me a t-shirt with a fucking math pun on it—”

From the darkness of the bedroom, she hears dresser drawers opening and closing, and the sound of Nikos’s gleeful laughter.

* * *

Twenty minutes later, Philippa—wearing a shirt printed with an elegantly-painted tangerine that is, as the shirt informs her and anyone in the vicinity, equal to sin(gerine) over cos(gerine)—finishes making up the couch with the sheets Nikos handed her and glances up when Nikos themselves pads back into the living room, leaving their bedroom door open behind them; Philippa glimpses books strewn across their king-sized bed. “Good night, Phil,” they murmur, reaching out to clasp her in another hug.

“Good night, Kokos,” Philippa says into their shoulder, and adds, on impulse, leaning up to kiss their cheek, “I love you very much, you know.”

Nikos’s eyebrows raise slightly—the two of them have rarely use those words after their marriage and, with it, their romantic relationship ended; it’s a truth, but a largely unstated one—and a slow smile spreads across their face. “I love you very much too, Phil,” they murmur, a note of deep happiness in their voice as they hug her close for a moment longer. “Wake me up if you need anything.”

“I will.” Philippa smiles as they pull apart, stepping toward the couch as Nikos pads back into their bedroom, pulling the door gently closed behind them.

Sliding into her couch bed and snuggling underneath the sheets and soft blanket, Philippa wriggles around until she has a good vantage point of the stars that glimmer above the rooves of the buildings across the street. It feels almost indescribably safer to fall asleep here, on Nikos’s only slightly saggy sublet couch, cracker crumbs still in its crevices, than it does to fall asleep in her smooth, clean bed back home. She imagines what it would be like to wake Nikos, in the event of a nightmare. To her surprise, the image feels plausible, and the comfort of that feels almost scandalously reassuring.

_It’s what friends do._

Philippa bites her lip, staring at the currently-distant stars and reflecting, again, on the question that hits her in the pit of her stomach when she thinks of the captains and officers and friends who have surrounded her over the course of her quarter-century in Starfleet, often warm and openminded and kind, sometimes…not.

 _What they said and did doesn’t mean they weren’t good people, or that they didn’t care about you,_ Philippa tells herself sternly, for the thousandth time. _Or that you weren’t worth caring about. Problems like that go beyond any one person._

She closes her eyes as a small voice inside her echoes the refrain that she is so used to pushing down again.

_If we—all of us—Nikos and Flora and I and all the others—were worth caring about, why didn’t they fight harder for us?_

She swallows, thinking of how the anger in Nikos’s eyes when they talk about Philippa’s interactions with Starfleet now are matched only by how they had to turn their face away when Philippa talked casually of her younger days. As though Philippa has always been worth that anger; has always deserved that care.

The refrigeration unit hums on again, and Philippa swallows as she stares into the night sky, thinking of Michael and Saru, Danby and Jira and Kamran. What would she have thought, if a visiting captain on the Shenzhou had spouted the same nonsense about cowardice and self-reliance that Philippa’s captains and lieutenants once did?

 _Maybe they_ should _have cared more._ She swallows again. _Maybe they should have taken more responsibility for challenging their preconceptions. The way that I care enough about my crew to try to work out how to ask for help, and care for myself, and refuse to go it alone, and say that doing these things does not make me less._

Philippa closes her eyes as she exhales softly in the darkness, realizing as she does so that she is once again enjoying the luxury of full and steady breaths.

If the problems go beyond any one person, maybe that’s all the more reason to talk about them.

“And I will,” Philippa whispers aloud. “I’ll do it. For the crew, and—”

She blinks, startled to realize that she began the next clause without first having had to nudge herself to be a role model.

Staring out at the glittering stars, she smiles as she snuggles deeper into the blankets. “And for myself.”

**Author's Note:**

> **Nicknames Notes (Appendix??)**
> 
> Much of this may be out of date (much though I would like to pretend I am ~Greek enough~ to come bundled with hardcoded language skillz, my main source for Greek nicknaming conventions is a paper written in 1970), but a) these characters are kicking around in the 23rd century so lbr, some amount of suspension of disbelief is required re: linguistic evolution anyway, and b) in this AU Nikos grew up partially outside of Greece, which gives me a convenient out when it comes to them adhering to the same linguistic mores that someone who lived there would.
> 
> Kokos = Nickname for Nikos by Greek traditionally-masculine nicknaming rules.* Philippa would use a traditionally-feminine formulation (Kokitsa?) for them if they so desired, but they use traditionally-masculine names, gender-neutral honorifics (Mx.), and traditionally-feminine descriptors (ex-wife rather than ex-spouse).
> 
> Lili = Nickname for Philippa by Greek traditionally-feminine nicknaming rules.*
> 
> Phil = Not a nickname for Philippa (or Philip) by Greek-language nicknaming rules. Nikos calling Philippa “Phil” 90% of the time is a legacy of a) the two of them spending much of their time during the beginning of their relationship working together around others and speaking Federation Standard, which I’m assuming (just going out on a jaded Star-Trek-viewer limb here!) borrows heavily from American English and in which b) “Phil” is traditionally androgynous-going-on-masculine, which is Nikos’s nod to Philippa’s GNC gender presentation.
> 
> Nikos considers it good gender etiquette not to call any woman by a Greek traditionally-masculine nickname formulation unless she were to specifically ask for that (which Philippa doesn’t). However, they would also feel weird calling Philippa by a traditionally-feminine nickname formulation with any degree of frequency, so “Phil” remains in heavy rotation. (I am sure there are many ways of tackling a need for a more-androgynous nickname in Greek; in-universe, Nikos and Philippa are both fond of “Phil” (plus, nickname inertia), and out-of-universe, I don’t know any Greek queer people to quiz about this.) 
> 
> However, “Phil” for Philippa is, as nicknames go, also more of an informality/bro-ification than it is a hypocorism/pet name, which is why Nikos gravitates to “Lili” when they need a term of endearment (just as Philippa gravitates to “Kokos” rather than their given name when she needs a term of endearment for them).
> 
> (*Probably. By general Greek language nicknaming convention, they are, and Lili/Kokos both = real Greek names/nicknames. However, I wasn’t able to check for sure whether some idiosyncrasy (of which there are many) specifically prevents Lili from being a nickname for Philippa or Kokos for Nikos. (Anyone know??) However, since in this AU Nikos grew up outside of Greece and Philippa had one Greek grandparent, neither of them necessarily has all the relevant knowledge of linguistic idiosyncrasies mentally on file, so I have a convenient out on this as well. ;)
> 
> Anyway, big old shoutout to Aristotle Katranides for writing out [this 1970 paper on Greek hypocoristic nicknaming rules](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/00437956.1970.11435608), out of date or not, which you can read to check my work or for gems like this:
>
>> The features of endearment or disparagement exemplified in table 8 are not necessarily conveyed by nicknames with a hypocoristic affix: one may address a person with his or her affixal hypocoristic nickname even in the midst of a rowdy quarrel, if not during a fistfight.
> 
> The more you know.


End file.
